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Gleichmann, Otto

(b Mainz, 20 Aug 1887; d Hannover, 2 Nov 1963). German painter and printmaker. After his academic training in Düsseldorf, Breslau (now Wroclaw) and Weimar, he served in the trenches on the French and Russian fronts. In 1917 he found that the critic Theodor Daubler (1876–1934) shared his animistic vision of cosmic order. Drawn by favourable reception of his graphic works, he became a member of the Hannover Secession in 1918, settling in the city permanently in 1919. The spiritual unity of man, animal and organic life is expressed in the fantasy landscape painting Shining: Falling (1920; Hannover, Kstmus.), which shows his early style of strong contours and areas of overlaid sombre colour influenced by the artists of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. His provisional use of nervous linear gestures is exemplified in two portfolios of lithographs published by Paul Cassirer in 1919, Judas Maccabaeus and Antiochus. Around 1921 he adopted the circus, cabaret and ballroom as settings for such candid portraits of loneliness as The Stage (1923; Berlin, Gal. Brusberg). An effective combination of media is attained in the watercolour with gouache Bayoneted Man (1923; Los Angeles, CA, Co. Mus. A.).

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