Atonement

In September 1912 the Berlin magazine Der Sturm printed a poem by Else Lasker-Schüler called Versöhnung, and next to it this woodcut by Franz Marc. The poem opens with a great star falling into the speaker's lap, and Marc cut two figures holding each other inside a burst of light, with crescent moons and stars above them. The woodcut led the poet to seek out his friendship.

The German word means reconciliation. It also sits inside Versöhnungstag, the German name for the Jewish Day of Atonement, which is why the print reaches English under both titles, Reconciliation in some collections and Atonement here.

A woodcut is printed many times from a single block, and this sheet is one impression of the edition. Others are in Washington and San Francisco. After Marc's death his widow Maria stamped it as genuine, and the museum bought it in 1940 from Karl Nierendorf, a German dealer who had moved his gallery to New York.