Mit dem Selbstmord Spielen (Playing with Suicide)

Gramatté employed traditional woodcut methods, carving the design into a block and printing it in a single blue wash. Afterward, he applied red gouache by hand, accentuating select areas and intensifying the contrast. The work reflects the German Expressionist tendency toward bold lines and emotive distortion, while also incorporating elements of magic realism through its symbolic ambiguity.

Created shortly after World War I, the print emerges from a period when Gramatté was coping with wartime trauma and personal illness. It was produced during his brief but prolific post‑war output and has since passed through private collections before entering a public institution’s holdings, where it is catalogued as a representative example of his late oeuvre.

Within the broader Expressionist movement, Gramatté’s woodcut stands out for its fusion of stark graphic execution and subtle color intervention. The piece contributes to the era’s exploration of inner experience over external realism, influencing later artists who sought to merge printmaking’s graphic force with painterly coloration.