45. Siegfried Reinhardt
(1925-1984)
Intermission

(click on image to print)
Reinhardt: Intermission

Intermission

Original drawing in pen and ink and spatter over pencil on thick wove paper, titled and signed, 400 x 295 mm. Reinhardt came from Germany with his parents in 1928, became a naturalized citizen in 1936 and enlisted in the armed forces in 1944, where he worked for a time as illustrator for The Stars and Stripes. He was, apparently, formally untrained in art and took his degree at Washington University of St. Louis in English literature. But he returned there to teach as an artist and became a member of the St. Louis Artists Guild. Most of Reinhardt’s work (murals, paintings, drawings, stained glass) is in a realist/surrealist style and is frequently based on Christian religious themes. But there is nothing religious about this wonderfully wicked drawing of three ladies and their bottles. Fluently and stunningly drawn, it indicates that perhaps Reinhardt didn’t need formal artistic training. He was a natural.