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Man of Steel—or Straw?

Celebrate Halloween with this abstract woodcut by German-born artist Werner Drewes. Can you recognize the Halloween image he represents here?

Drewes studied at the Bauhaus, an influential German school of art and design that focused on techniques and materials used in industry, such as steel, concrete, chrome, and glass.

Drewes occupies a special place in American art. He was one of the first Bauhaus-trained artists to settle in the United States and to carry on the traditions of German modernism. When he arrived in this country in 1930 he had behind him two periods in the Bauhaus.… Thus he brought with him a point of view that was little known in this country, one that was different from the more familiar offshoots of the schools of Paris.

Drewes was not a narrow Bauhaus disciple. He had studied the old masters in Italy and Spain, and he was fascinated by certain elemental aspects of nature. Bauhaus design was infused with a large feeling for the living world and modified by a bold attack that stemmed from the traditions of German expressionism. Drewes combined these qualities in a fresh outlook, Germanic in its source but independent in its final expression.

Use our search page to view more than 300 digitized works by Drewes in our collection!

Source: Jacob Kainen. "The Woodcuts of Werner Drewes," in Werner Drewes Woodcuts (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press for National Collection of Fine Arts, 1969), p. 7.

Pictured: Werner Drewes, 1899 Germany–1985 USA, Halloween, 1981, color woodcut on paper, 16 1/8 x 11 5/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist.