1896 — 1983
The Dutch artist Paul Citroen, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Berlin, studied at the Bauhaus school of fine art, adopting the Bauhaus style into his portraiture and drawing style. Citroen saw portraiture as a way of getting through people, approaching people "as psychological beings." His 1923 montage Metropolis would go on to inspire Fritz Lang's seminal film of the same name.
Citroen later become a scholar at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. During WWII, he hid with other fugitives in the attic of a friend's home in South Holland. His students include the painter and art educator Kees Bol. Citroen died in 1983. His works have been exhibited in Amsterdam's Rijksmusem, New York's MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago, among many others.
