The Youth

A coastline in the South Seas. People are monumentally arranged against a dramatic backdrop of towering volcanic cones. The man standing on the far right holds a spear. This painting might appear to depict the tranquil daily life of a distant paradise. A world of primitive harmony, bathed in dazzling light.

But in reality, this canvas was painted on a battlefield, far from any paradise.

It was 1917. Hermann Max Pechstein was 36 years old. He was now mired in the trenches of World War I, spending his days tirelessly drafting maps as part of his military service. Just three years prior, with the support of art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt, he had journeyed to the Palau Islands. It was his utopia. He loved the place so much that he wrote in his autobiography, 'I breathed it with boundless happiness.'

However, the war took everything away. He was interned by the Japanese army and lost many of the early works he had painted in Palau. Memories of desperate warfare. An impersonal pen for drawing maps. In between these tasks, he quietly closed his eyes.