Degenerate Art: Dodo
Call II (Ruf II), 1933
Watercolor on paper
45.5 × 35.5 cm
Auctioned 2019

Two figures sit in quiet symmetry, unclothed yet adorned with red floral necklaces, turquoise earrings, and gold bangles. A shaft of light falls from the upper left, bathing them in a glow that feels both theatrical and spiritual. The elongated limbs, calm expressions, and ornamental detail speak to Dodo’s gift for turning fashion’s elegance into something more inward, more contemplative.

Call II belongs to the fragile threshold of her Berlin years, poised between the brilliance of Weimar culture and the rupture of emigration. The title carries its own ambiguity: a summons, a warning, or an awakening. The watercolor holds that tension, staging figures who seem illuminated yet self-contained, caught in a moment of ritual or reverie.

The figure on the right recalls Dodo’s Samba, dated 1934 and sold at Karl & Faber. The ornamental jewelry and stylized posture echo across the two works, suggesting a thematic sequence in which rhythm, gesture, and feminine presence are explored with equal parts elegance and intensity. Seen together, Call II and Samba form a dialogue of light and movement, ritual and dance.

Born into a Jewish family in Berlin, Dodo trained at the Schule Reimann and quickly became one of the sharpest voices of the Neue Sachlichkeit. Her satirical illustrations for Ulk magazine and her watercolors of Berlin’s social theatre dissected modern rituals with irony and precision. But in 1933, the Nazi regime silenced her career: Ulk was shut down as “too Jewish,” and her opportunities in Berlin collapsed. By 1936 she emigrated to London with her family, adopting the name Dodo Adler. In exile she turned to illustration and more modest commissions, far removed from the biting social commentary of her Berlin years.

For decades her Weimar watercolors remained unseen, scattered in private hands, her name fading from view. It was only in the 1990s that her work was rediscovered, with exhibitions and scholarship restoring her place among the most incisive artists of her generation. Since then, her oeuvre has steadily gained recognition, with watercolors from the late 1920s and early 1930s now reaching mid-four to low-five figures at auction.

Call II (Ruf II), with its measured scale and symbolic richness, stands among the rediscovered works that have brought Dodo back into view. It shows how her Berlin years combined elegance with psychological depth, and why her watercolors, once forgotten, now speak again with clarity and resonance.