Sale: 415 / Modern Art, June 06. 2014 in Munich Lot 203

 

203
Oskar Schlemmer
Zwiegespräch (Anklage), Um 1924/25.
Watercolor
Estimate:
€ 35,000 / $ 37,800
Sold:
€ 48,800 / $ 52,704

(incl. surcharge)
Zwiegespräch (Anklage). Um 1924/25.
Watercolor and pencil.
Von Maur A 167. With estate stamp of Carl Schlemmer in lower right, there inscribed "W 39". With date "1923". On glassine, upper edge perforated, firmly mounted in places on backing sheet, mounted on board in places. 14 x 22 cm (5,5 x 8,6 in), size of sheet. Backing board: 24,8 x 30,8 cm (9,7 x 12,1 in).
[JS].
The figure compositions with watercolors from 1920/30s are among the artist's most sought-after works on the international auction market.

Other than specified in the catalog, this lot number may also be subject to differential taxation + 7% import turnover tax (savings of 5% in comparison with regular taxation).

PROVENANCE: Private collection Turin.
Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels/New York.
Galerie Renée Ziegler, Zurich.
Rachel Adler Fine Art, New York.
Private collection (acquired from previously mentioned in 2005).

EXHIBITION: Oskar Schlemmer. Handzeichnungen - Aquarelle, Hanover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, 24 February - 27 March 1960 / Mannheim, Stadtische Kunsthalle, 9 April - 8 May, 1960 / Karlsruhe, Badischer Kunstverein, 18 October - 13 November, 1960 / Dortmund, Museum am Ostwall, 27 November - 26 December, 1960 / Kiel, Kunsthalle, Schleswig-Holsteinischer Kunstverein, 19 February - 26 March, 1961 et al, no. 20.
Oskar Schlemmer, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 22 September - 27 October 1963, no.103.
Oskar Schlemmer. Suites no. 6, Galerie Krigier, Geneva, April/May 1964, no. 38.

LITERATURE: Hans Hildebrandt (publisher), Oskar Schlemmer, Munich 1952, no. 499
Art International, vol. VIII, issue 5-6, summer 1964, illu. on p. 87.

After an apprenticeship in a marquetry workshop from 1905 to 1909 Oskar Schlemmer studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule as well as the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, where he became Adolf Hölzel's master pupil in 1912. He exhibited at the Gallery 'Der Sturm' in Berlin in 1919 and was invited to Weimar in 1920 by Gropius to run the sculpture department and the stage workshop at the Bauhaus. He became internationally known with the première of his 'Triadisches Ballett' in Stuttgart in 1922. His work for the Bauhaus and his preoccupation with the theatre are an important factor in his work, which deals mainly with the problematic of the figure in space. People, typically a stylised female figure, continued to be the predominant subject in his painting. Influenced by Cubism, he usually integrated this figures into geometric structures. A similar striving for abstraction is reflected in Schlemmer's steel and wire sculptures.

In November 1924 Oskar Schlemmer put his concept of art in a letter to Hans Hildebrandt,art historian and importantpatron of the Bauhaus and modern art in general,as follows: ">> Abstract<< figures, entirely devoid of physicality and mere hieroglyphs; enigmatic drawings, cave paintings, lapidary style, are, the way I see itone pole . The other would be the figure embedded in space, tone, color value. The aim: The felicitous combination of nature and abstraction, which - still- seems to be an indicator for perfect art." (Transl. of quote after: Von Maur, vol. I, p. 338.) In Schlemmer's years at the Weimar Bauhaushe made, alongside the renowned "gallery pictures", a "vast body of watercolors, that showed the finest compositions, which, in many cases, were never executed as paintings." (Von Maur, vol. I, p.164). During his days in Stuttgart, Schlemmer made very few watercolors, instead, he focusedentirely on India ink drawings for the development of a new style. Through the return to a stronger coloring on paintings made during his Bauhaus days, works on paper in colors also gained in importance, often they are the only originals that survived up until today and proof of lost paintings. At the same time they are documents of experimental autonomous laws, which express, just as it is the case with this "Anklageszene", a development and continuation of a motif from a painting with a similar theme from1923 (Von Mauer G 125), executed in an innovative entanglement of space and figure, as well as with a combination of abstraction and figuration.

Schlemmer spent the years 1928 to 1930 working on nine murals for a room in the Folkwang Museum in Essen. After Gropius' resignation in 1929 Schlemmer also left the Bauhaus and accepted a post at the Akademie in Breslau in the same year. He was given a professorship at the Vereinigte Staatsschulen in Berlin in 1932, but the National Socialists forced him to resign again in 1933. During the War Schlemmer worked at the 'Institut für Malstoffe' in Wuppertal together with Willi Baumeister and Georg Muche. He led a secluded life at the end of his career and made the small series of eighteen mystical 'Fensterbilder' in 1942. Oskar Schlemmer was one of the most versatile artists of the 20th century. His occupation with murals, sculpture, drawing and painting show that he always strove to create a Gesamtkunstwerk.




203
Oskar Schlemmer
Zwiegespräch (Anklage), Um 1924/25.
Watercolor
Estimate:
€ 35,000 / $ 37,800
Sold:
€ 48,800 / $ 52,704

(incl. surcharge)