German painter, sculptor, and choreographer Oskar Schlemmer is best known for his work at the Bauhaus art school in Germany, where he taught from 1920 to 1929. While heading the sculpture department at the school from 1920 to 1923, he produced only two free-standing sculptures, one of which is Abstract Figure. Here, Schlemmer reshapes human anatomy by breaking down the body into a series of convex and concave geometrical forms, supported on a submarine-shaped base suggestive of war machinery. The precision and clarity of interlocked elements, as well as the featureless face of the sculpture, are typical of the depersonalized artistic styles of the post-World War I period.