Don Quixote

Otto Gutfreund

Otto Gutfreund - Don Quixote
When Gutfreund returned from his studies in Paris in 1910, his expressive concept of form with symbolic content blended with the stimuli of French cubism in the style of his sculptures and reliefs. His interpretation of the classical literary figures of Don Quixote and Hamlet embodying his personal experience with existentialist uncertainty belong to Gutfreund’s cubo-expressionist period. The sculpture of the standing knight leaning against his sword has not survived. Gutfreund focused more closely on the mental drama symbolized by the tragicomic figure of Don Quixote in his surviving, dynamically modelled bust, which is devoid of any literary attributes and whose volume is corrupted by edges and depressions.
date:
measurements: height 38 cm
width 30 cm
depth 17 cm
material: bronze
inscription:
inventory number: P 1390
gallery collection: Collection of 19th Century Art and Classical Modernism