It Can't Happen Here

1943

Werner Drewes

Associated Names
Werner Drewes

Artist, American, 1899 - 1985

The image displays bold, angular shapes and lines against a background of horizontal lines. The abstract composition suggests familiar objects such as mechanical gears or figures with extended limbs. In the center, there is a circular form with a smile-like marking surrounded by protruding angular lines that could be seen as arms or mechanical levers. The overall structure evokes a playful yet mechanical assembly, drawing on visual metaphors of both human forms and machinery in an abstract manner.
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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    woodcut in black on laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Ingrid Rose in memory of her husband Milton Rose

  • Dimensions

    image: 15.56 × 26.04 cm (6 1/8 × 10 1/4 in.)
    sheet: 18.42 × 28.26 cm (7 1/4 × 11 1/8 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2018.37.1

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Rose 1984, no. III.97

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Gift to NGA by Ingrid Rose, Washington, DC, 2018.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1984

  • Rose, Ingrid. Werner Drewes: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Prints. Munich and New York: Verlag Kunstgalerie Esslingen, 1984, p. 314, no. III.97.

Inscriptions

lower left in graphite: I - XXXV; lower right in graphite: W-Drewes 43-; lower left edge in graphite by unknown hand: #90 "It Can'nt Happen Here"

Wikidata ID

Q77262720

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