Aquatint. Image of a soldier with a gun in his right hand, a knife in his left hand, and a gas mask around his neck. Shadowed hands in bottom half of image, reaching up to him. Ghostly figures of bad people in the background. Number 5 of 25 prints. Mounted onto a large piece of folded paper with left side cut to reveal image. Mounted with brown paper tape. Recto, of image: lower left corner"Germany Awakene"-in quotes, in graphite. To the right,"5/2" also in graphite.
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The print was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995 by Harold Shachner.
Leon Schleifer was born in 1900 in Germany. He served in the German army at the end of World War I (1914-1918). He became a political cartoonist and his work was published in the anti-Nazi press. He also specialized in courtroom trial sketches. After the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, Schliefer emigrated to the United States. He changed his name to William Sharp and continued his career as an editorial cartoonist and illustrator. His work was published in the New York Times, Life Magazine, and other publications. He died in 1961, age sixty-one years.
William Sharp aquatint of an armed soldier under siege