Books and Art

Lesende Frau (1913). August Macke (German, 1887-1914). Oil on board.

Macke painted what he knew. The ladies strolling in the avenues with men in straw boaters, children playing outdoors, and his own wife, at their kitchen table. This touching portrait of Macke’s wife Elisabeth was executed in 1913, just four years into their married life and only one year before his untimely death in the second month of The Great War.