Two Heads c. 1929

Alfred Maurer, an early American modernist, made this emotionally fraught painting titled "Two Heads" using gouache and graphite on paper. Maurer spent much of his career in Paris, becoming deeply influenced by the radical ideas of artists like Matisse and Picasso. Though he initially gained recognition as a traditional painter, his later work, like this example, shows him grappling with the visual language of Cubism to express complex psychological states. The fragmented forms and distorted features resist conventional portraiture, instead capturing a sense of alienation and inner turmoil. We might consider the impact of the early 20th century's rapidly changing social landscape. How might the trauma of World War I or the increasing sense of societal fragmentation be represented in these abstracted and destabilized forms? Maurer's tragic life ended by suicide, shortly after his father, a more traditionally minded artist, passed away. Looking at "Two Heads" one wonders about the weight of familial expectations, artistic struggles, and personal demons that Maurer seems to pour onto the canvas.