Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/christian-schad-2331" aria-label="More by Christian Schad" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Christian Schad</a>
Agosta PigeonChested Man and Rasha Black Dove
Lent from a private collection 2000
actions: postures and motions
adults
Agosta
arts and entertainment
black
deformity
diseases and conditions
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
entertainer
ethnicity
individuals: female
individuals: male
isolation
man
named individuals
people
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Rasha
sex and relationships
sitting
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work and occupations
<p>The people in this painting directly return our gaze. Schad met the two sitters at a funfair in north Berlin in 1929. They were performers in a sideshow act there. Their roles involved displaying their bodies as ‘exotic’ or ‘other’ to funfair visitors. We might ask whether the painting is critical of this objectification. It could also be seen as perpetuating the voyeurism and discrimination experienced by Agosta and Rasha. Schad's commitment to painting reality reflects his association with the New Objectivity. This artistic movement combined social criticism with a near-photographic realism.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
5 November 2002 – 9 June 2003
2003-06-09
5 November 2002 – 14 February 2003
2003-02-14
2002-11-05
Musée Maillol (Paris, France)
14 March 2003 – 9 June 2003
2003-06-09
2003-03-14
Neue Galerie New York (New York, USA)
http://www.neuegalerie.org
2002-11-05
Christian Schad
Loan-out
15 November 2006 – 15 February 2007
2007-02-15
15 November 2006 – 15 February 2007
2007-02-15
2006-11-15
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2006-11-15
Glitter and Doom: Portraits from the Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
Loan-out
26 September 2008 – 6 January 2009
2009-01-06
26 September 2008 – 6 January 2009
2009-01-06
2008-09-26
Leopold Museum (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.leopoldmuseum.org
31 January 2009 – 10 May 2009
2009-05-10
2009-01-31
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (The Hague, Netherlands)
2008-09-26
Christian Schad Retrospective
Loan-out
25 March 2013 – 24 June 2013
2013-06-24
25 March 2013 – 24 June 2013
2013-06-24
2013-03-25
Musée du Louvre (Paris, France)
2013-03-25
L'Art Allemand
Loan-out
2 May 2015 – 17 January 2016
2016-01-17
2 May 2015 – 30 August 2015
2015-08-30
2015-05-02
Museo Correr (Venice, Italy)
4 October 2015 – 17 January 2016
2016-01-17
2015-10-04
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, USA)
2015-05-02
Neue Sachlichkeit
Loan-out
13 May 2024 – 11 October 2024
2024-10-11
13 May 2024 – 11 October 2024
2024-10-11
2024-05-13
Leopold Museum (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.leopoldmuseum.org
2024-05-13
New Objectivity in Germany
Loan-out
Agosta, the Pigeon-Chested Man, and Rasha, the Black Dove
unconfirmed: 1200 × 800 mm
Lent from a private collection 2000
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Agosta, the Pigeon-Chested Man, and Rasha, the Black Dove</i> 1929 is a large portrait-orientated oil painting of two funfair performers made by the German artist Christian Schad. Set against a neutral background of purples, blues and greys, the painting features a white man (Agosta) on a decorative high-backed chair that is reminiscent of a throne. He is naked aside from a black and white robe that is swathed around his lower half, and he turns slightly to his right in an upright position that emphasises his unusually prominent ribcage. The man has a confident, almost arrogant expression, and stares down towards the viewer. Positioned in front of him at his feet is a black woman (Rasha) visible from the chest upwards, who wears a red and white halter-neck top. She is shown frontally and gazes impassively at the viewer. The<b> </b>painting is signed and dated by the artist in the bottom right corner.</p>
<p>This work was made in 1929 in Berlin, where Schad lived from 1927 to 1943. It is executed on a plain-weave linen canvas with the paint applied consistently all over. Schad met the subjects of the painting at a funfair in north Berlin, where they appeared together using the bird-related names referenced in the work’s title. As part of their performance, Agosta displayed his upside-down ribcage – a deformity with which he was born – while Rasha, who was from Madagascar, appeared with a large snake wrapped around her (see Joachimides, Rosenthal and Schmied 1985, p.39). Schad made two preparatory drawings of each sitter in charcoal, and in a 1977 text he claimed that the models were ‘simple, obliging and, like all performers, dependable and punctual. They told me much about their lives that was much more interesting than what I would have been told at a five o’clock tea’ (quoted in Rewald 2006, p.156).</p>
<p>
<i>Agosta, the Pigeon-Chested Man, and Rasha, the Black Dove</i> can be closely related to the development of <i>Neue Sachlichkeit</i> (New Objectivity), a style of precise realist painting that first emerged in Germany in the early 1920s in response to more abstract forms such as cubism. As the art historian Wieland Schmied noted in 1985, Schad painted the subjects in this work ‘in a sober manner as objects devoid of any romanticism, objects of our curiosity, our desire or our repulsion’ (Joachimides, Rosenthal and Schmied 1985, p.39). Discussing Schad’s tendency to portray unconventional subjects in an objective and uncompromising fashion, the art historian Matthias Eberle has suggested that the artist was ‘ennobling them with his style’ (Matthias Eberle, ‘Neue Sachlichkeit in Germany: A Brief History’, in Rewald 2006, p.28).</p>
<p>Born in Bavaria in 1894, Schad trained briefly at the Art Academy in Munich in 1913, where he made expressionist woodcuts. He moved to Switzerland in 1915, living first in Zurich and then from 1916 to 1920 in Geneva, where he became part of the emerging Dada movement. In 1918 he began a series of ‘Schadographs’, which consist of photographic images produced not with a camera but by placing objects on photosensitive paper that is exposed to sunlight (see, for example, <i>Schadograph </i>1918, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Between 1920 and 1925 Schad lived in Italy, where his practice was especially influenced by Renaissance artists such as Raphael (1483–1520), before moving to Vienna in 1925, where his work included <i>Self-Portrait</i> 1927 (Tate L01710). Between 1942 and 1947 Schad was commissioned by authorities in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, where he moved in 1943, to complete a full-scale replica of Matthias Grünewald’s <i>Stuppach Madonna</i> 1514–19. His paintings of the 1950s engaged with forms of magical realism, while in the 1960s he returned to making ‘Schadographs’.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Christos M. Joachimides, Norman Rosenthal and Wieland Schmied, <i>German Art in the 20th Century: Painting and Sculpture 1905–1985</i>, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1985, pp.39, 498, reproduced no.173.<br/>Sabine Rewald, <i>Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s</i>, exhibition catalogue, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2006,<i> </i>pp.28, 154–6, reproduced p.155.<br/>
<i>Christian Schad: Retrospectief</i>, exhibition catalogue, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague 2009, p.132, reproduced p.133.</p>
<p>Richard Martin<br/>May 2016</p>
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Summary
2016-06-06T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>The people in this painting directly return our gaze. Schad met the two sitters at a funfair in north Berlin in 1929. They were performers in a sideshow act there. Their roles involved displaying their bodies as ‘exotic’ or ‘other’ to funfair visitors. We might ask whether the painting is critical of this objectification. It could also be seen as perpetuating the voyeurism and discrimination experienced by Agosta and Rasha. Schad's commitment to painting reality reflects his association with the New Objectivity. This artistic movement combined social criticism with a near-photographic realism.  </p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-08-21T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions adults Agosta arts and entertainment black deformity diseases and conditions emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas entertainer ethnicity individuals: female individuals: male isolation man named individuals people portraits Rasha sex and relationships sitting society voyeurism vulnerability woman work and occupations