Macbeth V (The Vision of Lady Macbeth)

Macbeth V (The Vision of Lady Macbeth) by Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Medium

Etching and drypoint

Classification

Print

Department

CG-W

Museum

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Credit

Rosenwald Collection

Accession Number

1944.2.39

Art Historical Context

Wilhelm Lehmbruck's *Macbeth V (The of Lady Macbeth)*, in 1918, the haunting psychological torment of Shakespeare's tragic figure during her infamous sleepwalking scene. As a leading German Expressionist, Lehmbruck was renowned for his elongated, emotive figures that conveyed profound inner anguish—a style honed through sculpture and extended to printmaking amid the devastation of World War I. This etching, part of a series inspired by *Macbeth*, reflects the own wartime grief, including the loss of his son, infusing the work with raw emotional depth. Printed using etching and drypoint techni...

About the Artist

Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881–1919) was a German sculptor whose elongated, melancholic figures rank among the most moving works produced by European Expressionism. Born in Duisburg-Meiderich into a working-class family, Lehmbruck studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Düsseldorf and later at the Düsseldorf Academy, where he mastered the academic tradition before pushing beyond it toward a more pers...

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