Correspondences Musée d'Orsay / Art contemporain

Born in 1935 in Düsseldorf, Konrad Klapheck discovered the Gustave Moreau Museum in 1957. He was seduced by this "too literary" painter, at a time when he was trying to make his own painting as literary as possible.
In his series of paintings on the theme of machines, he associates sewing machines with the world of women. According to the artist, women tend to be arrogant, dominating and dangerous. The sewing machine, with its metal arms and its needles, reminds him of the preying mantis. And he finds this image of the femme fatale once more in the paintings of Gustave Moreau.
For Konrad Klapheck, the young Thracian girl in Orpheus looks lovingly at the head of a poet who has been savagely put to death by the Maenads – or by the young Thracians – who were piqued by his disdain.