Collections: American Art: Trees Against the Sky

• Add to set
• Favorite
• Posse icon
• Share
• Print

This image is presented as a "thumbnail" because it is protected by copyright. The Brooklyn Museum respects the rights of artists who retain the copyright to their work.

Trees Against the Sky

The art of Karl Schrag, a German émigré to the United States in 1938, was liberated by the war’s end, when he allowed himself to move from politically positioned subjects to the more neutral art of landscape. In 1945 he also began to remake his stylistic approach under the influence of the innovative British printmaker William Stanley Hayter, joining Hayter’s studio, Atelier 17, in Greenwich Village. In both his prints and paintings, Schrag developed a more abstracted use of line with the aim of heightening the sense of motion in the images.


• Artist: Karl Schrag, American, 1912-1995
• Medium: Transparent and opaque watercolor, porous pen (felt-tip marker), crayon, ink, and mixed media on cream, moderately thick, slightly textured wove paper
• Dates: 1946
• Dimensions: 22 9/16 x 15 7/16 in. (57.3 x 39.2 cm)
• Markings: Watermark in paper: "1940 ENGLAND / B"
• Collections: American Art
• Museum Location: This item is not on view
• Accession Number: 47.113
• Credit Line: Dick S. Ramsay Fund
• Image: Overall, 47.113.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
Karl Schrag (American, 1912-1995). Trees Against the Sky, 1946. Transparent and opaque watercolor, porous pen (felt-tip marker), crayon, ink, and mixed media on cream, moderately thick, slightly textured wove paper, 22 9/16 x 15 7/16 in. (57.3 x 39.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 47.113 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 47.113.jpg)