Though he is little known today, during his time Willi Geiger was represented by the Cassirer and Gurlitt galleries in Berlin, both important in his time. From 1903, Geiger was a student of Franz von Stuck in Munich. Encouraged by his teacher, he became an early proponent of German symbolism.

His painterly work, especially the later pieces, are of little significance. However, his realisations in print of symbolist and surrealist subjects are some of the greatest produced in Germany before the First World War. He was instructed in printmaking by Peter Halm (see our catalogue n. 29) in Munich, and also benefited from the mentorship of Max Klinger (see our catalogue n. 25), receiving the Villa Romana Prize in 1910 as a result of the latter’s involvement. 



In 1906, Geiger moved to Paris, where he was connected to Albert Weisgerber and Auguste Rodin. There he met Juan Gris, a fellow recent arrival, who had also worked in a very illustrative manner in his early work and found common ground with Geiger’s work for the satirical Simplicissimus magazine in Munich. Gris accompanied Geiger on a sojourn in Madrid, during which this drawing was created. This was to become Geiger’s first trip to Spain, which he would repeat regularly and for longer periods of time. The annotations on the back of the sheet refer to a print made following this drawing, though in what form and with what purpose we unfortunately cannot verify. 

That said, for his first portfolio in 1902 entitled ‘Seele’ (Soul), Geiger produced similar drawings to ours (Seele. 30 Tuschzeichnungen, Franz von Stuck gewidmet. Verlag Marchlewski und Rich- ard Scheid, Munich. Edition of 100) (Literature: Wolfgang Petzet. Willi Geiger, Munich 1960. p. 33.)