Anxious Ridden in the Studio (Bedruckstein im Atelier)

Only 17 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, Conrad Felixmüller refused conscription into the armed forces and served instead in a military hospital. Felixmüller’s wartime works reveal the disintegration of national and individual spirit that official propagandists hoped to suppress.

Anxious Ridden in the Bedroom takes a subject of despair and confusion and interprets it in a visual vocabulary that challenges notions of order and unity. Felixmüller filters his subject—quite possibly himself—through the lens of Cubism, an international style widely associated with France and other official enemies of the state. The influence of German Expressionism is also evident, though it is an influence that evokes inner turmoil rather than patriotism or pride.