Still Life

By the time this print was created Rüga had lived in the USA for two years. Although he worked in the chemical industry, he tried to find time and opportunities to make art. In this work he returned to the technique he had discovered for himself before the war: coloured prints. His approach to the motif of the still-life is truly playful: the items have not been depicted in a gravely frozen manner, but have been scattered freely across the print, and their juxtaposition is not logical as the composition accommodates fish as well as a cactus. Rüga’s approach to colour is similarly playful: he has used warm shades as well as cold ones and has added shadows or contours where necessary. Differently from the art of painting Rüga is not dealing with blending or transitions here, but observes how various surfaces come into contact.