Dinge

(N.p., but Germany, 1930. Wolf, Gustav. Twenty-two wood-engraved prints, loose. All signed by Wolf. The prints are held in a custom chemise and dropback box, on the spine of which is gilt titling and the claim that the collection went unpublished, a statement corroborated by von Borries' 1982 catalog raisonné. The prints, produced in a unknown number of copies, were meant for an unrealized edition, the title of which, "Dinge," was decided by Wolf; von Borries cites a title page in his copy. That copy also had two more prints for a total of twenty-five, as well as a colphon. The edition, and perhaps even the ability to produce full suites of proof images, was certainly stunted by the nascent rise of the far right in Germany, which induced Wolf to flee and abandon many of his projects. The set, in any state of completion, is a remarkable survival; the Nazi's destroyed much of Wolfe's "degenerate" art. Each print is an extraordinary, grotesque example of Wolf's occult expressionism, as much an interrogation of the spritiuality of the artist as a headlong invocation of the bizarre and surreal. Lacking three prints, plus title page and colophon. Fine. (von Borries, H 73-100).