Marcel Janco

1. Untitled (Mask, Portrait of Tzara), 1919

2. Don Quihote and Sancho Pansha, year unknown

3. Nude, Ink and Panda, year unknown

Marcel Janco was a prominent Dada-ist at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Throughout his life he was an architect and painter. 

I've always liked the Dada aesthetic. Mostly chaotic, sometimes minimal, sometimes completely absurd, but always with utmost taste and skill. The mask of Tristan Tzara looks to me like a Dada-Cubist mix. That is, the angular, multi-angle look of cubism with the absurd humor of Dada. 

Don Quihote and Sancho Pansha looks like where Ralph Steadman drew inspiration. Very quick, loose ink/brushwork, light use of color washes, dark, kind of brooding, but you can still make out the artist's humor. 

Nudes, a to an extent the Don Quihote piece, remind me again of Ralph Steadman's ink work (albeit much simpler, less worked), but also some Sunday Cartoons like Marmaduke or Dennis the Menace. Here though he is displaying a minimum of information, but you get a solid feel for the moment of the piece, when it was actually drawn. You get a feel for the personality of the models, and the air about the place being depicted. Lightheard, humorous.