United Enemies, A Play in Ten Scenes: one plate
Two grotesque figures are bound together in an uneasy embrace, their distorted forms rendered in bold, graphic lines that blend the sinister with the darkly comic. Schütte's use of offset lithography combined with delicate hand-applied white heightening adds a tactile, intimate quality to the image, elevating it beyond mechanical reproduction. The work is part of a ten-scene narrative series that explores themes of conflict, entrapment, and the absurdity of human relationships through Schütte's distinctive sculptural sensibility translated into print.
- Medium
- Offset lithograph in colours with hand-colouring in white, on high gloss paper, with full margins,
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Evening & Day Editions
June 12, 2014
Artists in conversation
George Grosz
German · b. 1893
Grosz similarly used grotesque, distorted figuration in printmaking to satirize human relationships and social dysfunction, blending dark comedy with sinister undertones in bold graphic lines that closely mirror Schutte's approach in this narrative lithograph series.
William Kentridge
South African · b. 1955
Kentridge creates narrative sequential works featuring entangled, conflicted figures rendered in expressive black and white with hand applied interventions, sharing Schutte's interest in storytelling through prints that explore absurdity, entrapment, and the tensions of human connection.
Neo Rauch
German · b. 1960
Rauch produces figurative works with a darkly comic and conceptually dense narrative quality, depicting bound or conflicted figures in ambiguous scenes that carry the same unsettling yet playful tension found in Schutte's grotesque two figure compositions.
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