Little Walter's Toys

Little Walter's Toys is a still life built from objects connected to Macke's first son, Walter, rather than a direct portrait of the child. Stuffed animals, balls, a potted plant, and a Russian doll are arranged on a tablecloth and translated into bright, simplified shapes. The strong contours and flattened space show Macke's close engagement with Henri Matisse around 1910-1912. The painting combines domestic intimacy with the color-driven language of German Expressionism. After the Städel Museum's modernist holdings were devastated by the 1937 confiscations of so-called "degenerate art," the work became part of the museum's postwar rebuilding of its modern collection.