Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Acrobat

Conrad Felixmüller

Date

1921

Medium

Drypoint and etching

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Conrad Felixmüller came to prominence in Germany in the late 1910s when the emotional intensity of Expressionism began to give way to a more objective vision of modern life. The Acrobat depicts a female trapeze artist who poses for the artist while a clown steals her spot on the trapeze and swings over her head, much to the delight of the crowd behind them. Felixmüller seemed drawn to the circus, a separate realm where the bizarre and unusual were commonplace. Indeed, this topsy-turvy world seemed an apt metaphor for the chaotic conditions that wracked German society in the wake of World War I. Europe

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