Madonna with Machine Gun

The whole of Riga society used to talk about the singular visual image of artist Kārlis Padegs. This would have long been forgotten were it not for his unique talent. The power of the grotesque seen in the modernist Padegs’ expressive drawings, watercolours and paintings has no parallel in Latvian art. Although he was only a small child at the time of the First World War, the denouncement of destruction and brutality, and the anti-war theme became dominant in his work. Only he could have had the idea to paint a woman holding a machine gun as a challenge to common sense.