1917, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Head of a Sick Man.—Self-Portrait as a Sick Man [woodcut] -- Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven) (special exhibition)

From the museum label: The first iteration of this self-portrait arose from one of the most challenging years in Kirchner's treatment at the Bellevue Sanatorium in Kreuzlingen. During his stay there, Kirchner was described by a friend as a "true victim of the war; the hellish delusion of being sent back into battle had deranged him.... I found an emaciated man with a piercing, feverish gaze, who saw imminent death before his eyes." Seemingly crammed into a narrow and vertical space, Kirchner's hands barely register in the earlier, color-filled state. Notably, in that year, Kirchner suffered a paralyzing numbness in his extremities. When Kirchner executed the black-and-white version of Head of a Sick Man, however, he portrayed his fingers more fully articulated; the background forms emerge with greater lucidity and the heavy ridges around his eyes have slackened. "The mountain air is good for my hands," Kirchner wrote. "It is almost like liberation." In a sense, the image is one of a recovering patient who is more accepting of his condition.

Done