Couple in front of a Wire Fence

Imre Ámos called himself a creator of visionary pictures, and quite rightly so. But instead of the subconscious world, he chose the often cruel outer reality as his starting point. This is how Jewish tradition, the problematic present and the premonition of a bleak future came to be tragically bound together in his paintings. His own death in a Nazi concentration camp proved that his terrifying visions were nothing less than prophetic. Ámos's drawings are confessions of the artist's concern for the human race. Most of them are inspired by events in his own life, like "Couple in Front of a Wire Fence", painted in 1944. The couple, seeking shelter in the trunk of a tree are here turned into the symbol of love, and the tree into the final asylum. But the mutilated branches of the tree forecast the nearing end: the space, defined by the wire fence, is an explicit reference to Fascism. This drawing is a typical example of Ámos's Expressionism.