Frauenporträt 

Karl Wiener made this stark portrait, 'Frauenporträt', with ink on paper sometime during his career, which spanned much of the first half of the 20th century. The drawing seems to depict a woman with a severe expression, her features rendered in sharp, angular lines. We see a hint of modernism in Wiener's abstract lines and shapes. The architectural and numerical elements in the background seem to represent an urban landscape, locating the sitter in time and place. This was Vienna, in the years between the wars. What was the public role of art during this period? How did the modernist avant-garde engage with the politics of imagery? What were the social conditions that shaped artistic production? These are the kinds of questions we might ask as historians of art, turning to sources like letters, manifestos, exhibition reviews, and institutional records to understand the complex meanings of works like this. The meaning of art is contingent on social and institutional context.