Konrad Cramer (1888-1963)

After his arrival in the United States in 1913, Konrad Cramer established his reputation as a cubist painter fusing his German European background with American culture and industry. "Immo"...a painting that demonstrates that Cramer could use an established modernist style to express his personal imagery. The style adeptly mimics Picasso's and Braque's paintings of 1911-12 with its earth tones, dissolving planes and tantalizing fragments of words. The letters "Immo" and "ty," suggest "immorality" or "immortality," or perhaps an interpenetration of the two,." (T. Wolf, "Konrad Cramer: His Art and His Context," Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1984, p. 104.) The latent sexual innuendos and iconography, including the female leg and garter, the hint of pink lingerie and the nude figure in the lower right quadrant support the suggestion of immorality as the overwhelming theme.