Dodo 1907-1998
Three Illustrations for Joseph and his Brothers
pen and ink on paper
68.5 x 53.5
(lower left): 'Dodo'
2012-39
@Dörte Bürgner 'Dodo' estate
Photo: Bridgeman images
Dodo also illustrated bible stories, using an elegant, curving art nouveau line, as exemplified in Moses and the Burning Bush and The Expulsion from Paradise, c. 1930. Her series of...
Dodo also illustrated bible stories, using an elegant, curving art nouveau line, as exemplified in Moses and the Burning Bush and The Expulsion from Paradise, c. 1930. Her series of illustrations for the story of ‘Joseph and his Brothers’ may have been made partly in response to Thomas Mann’s four-part novel of the same title, begun in 1926. However, Dodo’s androgynous ‘brothers’, as shown in the work on display, have modishly long hair and clothing more appropriate to ‘sisters’! These pleasant images belie the most difficult conditions, and by spring 1936 both private and wider circumstances made Dodo’s life in Berlin impossible to continue, and she joined the flood of Jewish émigrés fleeing Germany.