My Mother's Grave (Das Grab meiner Mutter)

Born in a town in Czech Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Alfred Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism in the visuals arts of Austria and Germany. In Munich, where Kubin began art studies in 1899, he discovered the works of the late nineteenth-century Belgian, French, and German Symbolist artists. He was profoundly affected in particular by the prints of Max Klinger, and later recounted: "Here a new art was thrown open to me, which offered free play for the imaginative expression of every conceivable world of feeling. Before putting the engravings away I swore that I would dedicate my life to the creation of similar works." After 1910, Kubin abandoned painting for pen and ink drawings, watercolors, and lithography.

In 1896, Kubin had attempted suicide on his mother's grave, and a short stint in the Austrian army the following year ended with a nervous breakdown. This image from two decades later is both autobiographic in reference and the ideal subject for the artist—who is noted for his dark, spectral, and symbolic fantasies.