Les Ouvrières (Die Arbeiterinnen). 1920.
Oil on canvas.
Not in Vorms. Monogrammed and dated lower center. Signed, dated and titled on stretcher. 60,8 x 50 cm (23,9 x 19,6 in).

We are grateful to the Frans-Masereel-Foundation, Saarbrücken, for their kind support in cataloging this lot.

EXHIBITION: Frans Masereel, Galerie Joseph Billiet, Paris, December 1922, cat. no. 26 (no illu.).

Frans Masereel's commitment for a future society without social injustices can be found throughout the artist's oeuvre. Hardly any other of his contemporaries showed his political position so obvious in is art. The socially disadvantaged are his preferred theme. In this double portrait of two female workers in front of an imaginary soulless industrial background, the scheme-like make of the depicted persons' expressionless faces visualizes the lack of human dignity in modern industrial labor. The monotony is confronted with the peoples' uniformity. Throughout his life Frans Masereel was apolitically active artist with great sympathy for upcoming Socialism, however, not without questioning its drawbacks. [KD].