Re-awakening

Werner Drewes

1943–47

On View in Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery, Room 4

Werner Drewes was trained at the Bauhaus, the influential German interdisciplinary design school, where he studied under Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky, among others. He immigrated to New York in 1930, escaping Nazi political pressure and the subsequent closure of the Bauhaus in 1932. He also evaded the Nazis’ pillorying of modern art and persecution of artists. From the United States Drewes opposed fascist politics in Europe and defended free artistic expression. He taught at Washington University from 1946 to 1965 and befriended Max Beckmann, a fellow exile teaching at WashU, whose work is also on view in this gallery.

In Re-awakening abstract geometric forms intersect with biomorphic shapes that resemble both microscopic cells and landscape features, such as the sun, mountains, and running water. Drewes arranged individual elements into an interlocking configuration that accentuates color interactions and compositional balance—principles important in Bauhaus pedagogy. The bright hues that interrupt a somber, dark ground, together with the title, Re-awakening, suggest Drewes’s hope for rejuvenation following World War II. [Permanent Collection Label, 2022]

Artist Werner Drewes (American, b. Germany, 1899–1985)
Title Re-awakening
Date 1943–47
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions unframed | 48 x 38 1/4 in.
Credit line University purchase
Object number WU 3815

Technique oil painting
Work type painting
Theme Exile, Migration, and Displacement

Currently on View Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery, Room 4

Artists in Exile: European Surrealists in the US during and after World War II
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/01/2023

Caught By Politics: Art of the 1930s and 1940s
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/19/2001 - 03/18/2001

Early Modern European and American Art
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 09/08/1998 - 10/12/1998

Twentieth Century Art from the Washington University Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 01/28/1994 - 03/27/1994

Centennial Faculty Show
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 11/11/1979 - 01/31/1980

Werner Drewes Retrospective Exhibition, 1935–1965
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 04/11/1965 - 04/29/1965

Opening Exhibition of Mark C. Steinberg Memorial Hall
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 04/29/1960

Werner Drewes

Inscription Recto, lower left, in white paint: DrEwEs / 4 [peace sign] 4

Inscription Verso, upper left, in black paint 321 [enclosed in rectangle] / 4 [peace sign] 4

Inscription Verso, upper center on stretcher bar, in black marker: 321- DREWES

Label Verso, lower center on frame, yellowed rectangular label, with printed text in black and inscriptions in black ink: KLEEMANN GALLERIES / 65 EAST 57TH STREET, NEW YORK / [printed:] ARTIST [inscribed:] Werner Drewes / [printed:] TITLE [inscribed:] Reawakening / [printed:] SIZE 38 x 48 / [printed:] NO. [inscribed:] 64 [printed:] PRICE

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