Bridge to the Axis, Self Portrait 1909 Collection

You’ve seen powerful kings rendered in marble. You’ve seen them on the faces of coins and in works of art staged beside maps and tanks. But here we see Hitler, in a humble little watercolor, feet dangling off the edge of a broken stone bridge, gazing out across a muddy stream, in a self portrait that excludes his own face.

“The Man on the Bridge” collection features a handful of items adorned with Hitler’s 1910 self-portrait, capturing the uncanny loneliness of a man who wouldn’t make it into art school but who would go on to redraw borders with blood.