Caricature of Hitler , 1978
54 x 38 cm (h x w)
Collage (pen and ink and paper on newspaper)

© Arnold Daghani estate

Daghani's collaged caricature of Hitler, made long after the Second World War in October 1978, references his experience as a survivor of the Mikhailowka labour camp in the Ukraine, from which he and his wife, Anisoara, escaped to Budapest in 1943. Aged almost seventy, and in poor health, he revisited the subject of the Holocaust in a series of late works, in which representations of Hitler recur. This powerful satirical portrait comprises collaged elements cut from newspapers: subversively transforming a woman's naked torso into the face of Adolf Hitler, with the breasts in place of eyes, a nose added, and a cartoon-like moustache, eyebrows and a tuft of hair inked in. Beneath the caricature a text equates Hitler's distinctive hairstyle and moustache ('the rise of the tuft') with the rise of Nazism, symbolising the atrocities with which he is associated. The ferocious caricature is among Daghani's most powerful works and places him among a number of notable refugee caricaturists and political satirists, including George Grosz, Victor 'Vicky' Weiss and John Heartfield.

Exhibited by:

Ben Uri Research Unit

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