Theatre 1921

Siegfried Schott made this woodcut, called Theatre, at some point during his career. It’s a pretty interesting print. I like the boldness of the shapes and colours, feels like it could be a painting, but you can see the grain of the wood coming through the printmaking process. Look at the big areas of flat colour, and the way Schott uses the white of the paper as a kind of colour in itself. I like the fact that the white isn’t just empty space, but an active part of the composition. The artist is using the paper to bring out the contrast and make the colours pop. The title of the work and the composition make me think about theatre. The shapes become figures on a stage, and the bold colours are theatrical too. There’s something about the simplified forms that remind me of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, who were also interested in printmaking and bold colours, so it’s possible Schott would have seen their work and been inspired by it.