August Macke
1887 - 1914

Kandern 3. 1914.
Watercolor and pencil on wove paper, laid on cardboard.
With the estate stamp (L.1775b) on the reverse, as well as hand-dated, titled, and inscribed “August Macke” and the estate inventory number, presumably by Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke. 24.9 x 31.3 cm (9.8 x 12.3 in), size of sheet. [KA].

• A luminous, expressive watercolor by the great colorist August Macke.
• Around 1912, Macke developed his dynamic, Cubist-influenced color field compositions.
• Macke captured the idyllic rural life in Kandern—where he repeatedly visited his sister between 1905 and 1914—in intense, high-contrast colors.
• Following trips to Tunis and Switzerland, he created what are arguably the most significant works in his oeuvre in Bonn in June 1914: watercolors from this year fetch the highest prices on the international auction market.
• Just a few months after its creation, August Macke fell in battle in Champagne on September 26, 1914.
• At the same time, he painted “Woman in the Park,” now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

PROVENANCE: From the artist’s estate, no. 142/3 (1919) (with the estate stamp on the reverse).
Dr. Rusche, Cologne.
Private collection, Düren (1957).
Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia (inherited in 1980).

EXHIBITION: August Macke. Memorial Exhibition, Kunstverein Frankfurt am Main, May 19–June 13, 1920, cat. no. 27.
August Macke, Memorial Exhibition, Collections of Hilker, Jutz, Lehmbruck, Schinnerer, Trumm, Neues Museum Wiesbaden, Nassauischer Kunstverein/Wiesbadener Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, July–October 1920, Cat. No. 27.
Paula Modersohn-Becker 1876–1907, August Macke 1887–1914, Kunsthalle Basel, Feb. 8–Mar. 8, 1936, cat. no. 143.
August Macke, Memorial Exhibition, Museums of the City of Cologne at the Old University, June–July 1947, Cat. No. 139.
August Macke, Memorial Exhibition, Werkschule Trier, Oct. 19–Nov. 17, 1947, cat. no. 50.
August Macke Memorial Exhibition of the Museum Association, Suermond Museum, Aachen, Feb. 1–Mar. 7, 1948, cat. no. 100.
Lehmbruck, Macke, Marc, Kunsthalle Bern, Aug. 21–Sept. 26, 1948, cat. no. 111.
August Macke, Gemälde, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Oldenburger Kunstverein, Dec. 26, 1948–Jan. 30, 1949, cat. no. 57.
August Macke Memorial Exhibition, Richard-Baltz-Haus, Bochum, April 10–May 15, 1949, cat. no. 57.
August Macke, Städtisches Kunstmuseum Duisburg, May 1949, cat. no. 87.
August Macke Memorial Exhibition, Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund, June 25–July 24, 1949, cat. no. 86.
Friedliche Kunst, Low German Painters 1900–1914, Kunstverein Hanover, September 4–October 16, 1949, cat. no. 76.
Macke, Watercolor Exhibition, Städtisches Kunsthaus, Bielefeld, June 23–July 21, 1957, cat. no. 503 (illustrated on p. 63).

LITERATURE: Ursula Heiderich, August Macke. Aquarelle. Catalogue Raisonné, Ostfildern-Ruit 1997, CR no. 522 (illustrated in b/w on p. 369).
Gustav Vriesen, August Macke, Catalog of Watercolors, Stuttgart 1957, no. 503 (illustrated in b/w on p. 302).
“What preoccupied August most at the time was the dynamism within a painting—expressed not only through the formal division of space, but also, above all, through the interplay of hues against and among one another: even within a uniform, say, green surface, there must be no dead spots; the color must work, vibrate—live.”
Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke, quoted from: Erinnerung an August Macke, Stuttgart 1962, pp. 283f.