Oskar Schlemmer holding a mask, 1930

‘My themes – the human figure in space, its moving and stationary functions, sitting, lying, walking, standing – are as simple as they are universally valid,’ he once said of his work. ‘They are inexhaustible’

With the rise of the Nazis in the early 30′s, Schlemmer was edged out of a teaching post in Berlin. His work was included in the infamous exhibition of ‘degenerate art’ in 1937. He then worked in secret in a factory in Wuppertal until his death in 1943