Werner Bernhard Drewes (German-American, 1899-1985). Giant Stagbeetle (1956). Color Woodcut on Paper.

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St. Louis Contemporary and Classic: The May C...

By Woodard Lipe

May 9, 2026

Set Reminder 2026-05-09 11:00:00 2026-05-09 11:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : St. Louis Contemporary and Classic: The May Collection https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/woodard-lipe/st-louis-contemporary-and-classic-the-may-collection-23090
St. Louis Classic and Contemporary: the May Collection is a carefully curated auction presenting an exceptional breadth of fine art, works on paper, decorative arts and collectibles spanning multiple collecting disciplines, with highlights including works by Robert Motherwell, Willem de Koonig, Marc Chagall, Hans Bellmer, Sol LeWitt, Leslie Dill, Alexander Calder, Laszlo Dus, Ed Eugene Boccia and Siegfried Reinhardt alongside important American and European decorative arts. Woodard Lipe info@woodardlipe.com

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• Lot Description
  Sight Height 16.5 in., Width 28 in. Framed Height 24.25 in., Width 34.25 in. Signed, numbered, and dated lower right. Edition 19/30. Born in Germany, Werner Drewes began studying art in the 1920s in Stuttgart and then in Weimar, where he studied at the Bauhaus with artists Paul Klee, Johannes Itten, and Lyonel Feininger. Drewes was drafted into the army at age 18 and served in France on the Western Front of World War I until the end of the war. In the late 1920s after traveling abroad, Drewes resumed his study at the Bauhaus with Lazlo Moholy-Nagy and Wassily Kandinsky. In 1930, as the rise of Fascism grew in Germany, Drewes decided to emigrate to the U.S. where in 1936, he became an American citizen. Living in New York, Drewes actively exhibited his work for which he received praise and great reviews in The New York Times and New York Evening Post. In 1934, Drewes began his lengthy career as an art educator, teaching printmaking, drawing, and painting at a variety of museums and art institutions, eventually ending up in 1946 on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis where he befriended Max Beckmann, who was also teaching at the University. Drewes retired in 1965 moving first to Pennsylvania and then to Virginia, where he continued his prolific studio art career until his death in 1985. In 1984, the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented a large retrospective exhibition devoted entirely to his printmaking. This fabulous small edition woodcut print encompasses all of the sensibilities one might expect to see in a mid-century modern artwork by a massively skilled printmaker such as Werner Drewes. The imagery includes a giant beetle depicted in grays, browns, yellow, and black.

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