Herbert Rolf Schlegel, Self-Portrait, 1946, Pencil Drawing

Herbert Rolf Schlegel (1889 Breslau - 1972 Landsberg am Lech), Self-Portrait, 1946, pencil on heavy paper, 94 cm (height) x 73 cm (width), monogrammed “HRS” in the upper right corner and dated January 1946.

- Top edge pasted and annotated in Greek; occasionally slightly foxed, otherwise in good condition.




- The Inner Essence -



In the realistic style of New Objectivity, the artist sits in the landscape as a woman with a pageboy haircut, holding a young lady in her arms. Leaning against a rocky ledge, she gazes at the viewer with an expression that is both content and defiant, while her companion looks down shyly and somewhat pensively. Following her gaze, we notice her fingers, with which she lifts the voluminous, florally adorned hat and presents it. Next to the hat, her elegant legs are visible in high-heeled shoes and knee-high nylon stockings, also adorned with flowers; above them, her bare legs and the lace-trimmed dress, which reveals her breasts through the transparent lace above the bow. Her styled curls fall onto the décolletage visible above, leading the eye to her seemingly ideal face. The virtuoso, masterful use of the pencil makes the young woman’s appearance appear particularly delicate and refined, which captivates the viewer’s gaze and further enhances her erotic allure. The artist, depicted as a woman, has positioned herself to the side of the young woman, so that both bodies appear parallel to one another. As a result, their hairless legs in particular seem to correspond with one another. But the hands also look very similar. It becomes clear that both are “cut from the same cloth,” a fact emphasized not least by their identical eyebrows. Through these parallels, the true meaning of the image emerges: The young woman is the artist himself; she is his shy inner self, whom he presents—holding her in his arms. By turning her head away and wearing the large bow, she seems to separate herself, and yet she holds the hat, which—judging by its size—is actually the artist’s hat, further illustrating that she is the artist’s inner essence brought to life in the image. Against this backdrop, the depiction of the landscape also takes on a deeper psychological meaning: The surface is broken open, and beneath it appears the true inner essence, which grows into the world here full of beauty and also shapes the artist’s outer form.

Here, Herbert Rolf Schlegel creates an extremely powerful self-introspection that is at once a self-revelation and a pictorially conceived transgender theory avant la lettre.




About the Artist


After studying at the School of Applied Arts in Düsseldorf from 1909 to 1910, Herbert Rolf Schlegel, a native of Breslau, studied at the Weimar Art School under Fritz Mackensen and Ludwig von Hofmann from 1910 to 1911. from 1911 to 1913, he lived on Bornholm to further his self-directed training in figure and landscape painting. He then continued his studies at the Kassel Academy of Fine Arts and became a master student of Hans Olde in 1914. During World War I, he served as a technical draftsman from 1915 to 1918. During the war, he met Elisabeth Petersen, whom he married in 1919. In 1921, tragedy struck: his wife and their child died shortly after birth. After Schlegel completed his studies in Kassel with honors as the top student, he moved to St. Georgen near Dießen on Lake Ammer in 1924 and later settled in Schondorf. There, starting in 1932, he directed the pottery workshop at the Schondorf Landheim and worked as an art teacher at the high school. Among other works, he painted an altarpiece for the Protestant church in Utting and was a member of the Landsberg-Lech and Ammersee Artists’ Guild. After his service in World War II, he founded a private school for aspiring art students in his studio.