Archibald Ziegler:
Hell, mid 1920's
Framed (ref: 4861)
Inscribed with title
Pencil on tracing paper
Tags: Archibald Ziegler pencil allegory men TOP 100 Golden Generation RCA RELIGION
Provenance: Private Collection
This is a study for Ziegler's An Allegory of Social Strife. The scene can be read as a polemical Allegory of the sacrifice of the working man as a victim of the ruling classes. It depicts the artist himself on the Cross. He is flanked on the left by pugnacious worker's leaders (a reference to Socialism?) and on the right men in formal attire representing the Establishment (a reference to Capitalism?). Brow-beaten workers, under attack, fill the background. A soldier stands guard to the Establishment figures, amongst which is a macabre, frock coated figure whose pose and dog-collar alludes possibly to the Church. A study for this right hand group is inscribed by the artist with the title 'Hell'. Dating to the second half of the late 1920's - a period of mass unemployment and social unrest lasting until well into the 1930s - it recalls images of the 1926 General Strike, which Ziegler would have himself lived through as a young art student. Ziegler's striking composition is likely to have influenced the later well known self portrait as Christ (Jesus The Jew, 1942) by Emanuel Levy.
