Sale: 520 / Evening Sale, June 18. 2021 in Munich Lot 367

 

367
Franz Marc
Zwei gelbe Tiere (Zwei gelbe Rehe), 1912/13.
Watercolor and pencil
Estimate:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000
Sold:
€ 865,000 / $ 934,200

(incl. surcharge)
Zwei gelbe Tiere (Zwei gelbe Rehe). 1912/13.
Watercolor and pencil.
Hoberg/Jansen B III XXVI p. 233 (no illu.), Lankheit 621 (no illu.). From the sketchbook XXVI from 1912/13. On yellow paper (folding perforated). 17 x 10 cm (6.6 x 3.9 in), the full sheet.

• Watercolors in this format are considered the artist's most poetic works.
• From the possession of the artist's family it remained part of the Collection Ilse and Hermann Bode up until today.
• On permanent loan at the Sprengel Museum, Hanover
• This watercolor was made during the era of the "Blauer Reiter"
• Works from the best period and in this nearly original condition are extremely rare on the market
.

PROVENANCE: Maria Marc, Ried (until 1935/36).
Collection Ilse and Hermann Bode, Hanover/Steinhude (presumably since 1936).
Private collection Germany (inherited).

EXHIBITION: Kunsthaus Zürich, 1934 (no cat.).
Galerie Klipstein, Bern, 1935 (no cat.).
Kunstmuseum Basel, 1935 (no cat.).
Kunsthaus Zürich, January 13 - February 10, 1935, no. 134.
Franz Marc. Commemorative Exhibition, 150. Jahre Ausstellung Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover, March 4 - April 19, 1936, no. 78 (from a private collection, Hanover, presumably Collection Hermann Bode).
Zeitgenössische Kunst aus hannoverschem Privatbesitz, Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, 1954, presumably no. 93.
revonnaH. Kunst der Avantgarde in Hannover 1912-1933, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, September 23, 2017 - January 7, 2018, p. 20 (with illu.).
Sprengel Museum, Hanover (permanent loan until early 2021).

Franz Marc around 1911/12.

When looking at this watercolor - in a format slightly larger than a postcard – we realize how Franz Marc once again succeeded in conveying the sensation he got from the mysterious creative powers of nature to us. We are moved by the grace of the representation, impressed by the sublime shapes of the animals‘ bodies in an imaginative landscape, impressed by the effect of the finely set colors. The artist's work was inspired by profound feelings for the animal, which instinctively moves in nature, merges with it, and in all of this, the artist's observation appears t be out of this world: “Is there a more mysterious idea for an artist than this: How is nature reflected in the eye of an animal? How does a horse see the world or an eagle, a deer or a dog? How pathetic and soulless is our convention to place animals in our concept of a landscape instead of immersing in the animal's soul in order to get an idea of its image circle. [..] What does the deer have to do with the world as we see it? Is there any reasonable or even artistic sense in painting the deer as it appears to our retina, or in a cubist form, because we feel the world in cubist terms? Who says that the deer feels the world in cubist terms; it has a sensation of the world in 'deer' terms, so the landscape must be 'deer'. That is its predicate”, wrote Marc in 1911/12, thoughts that Maria Marc published in 1920. (Quote from: Franz Marc. Briefe, Schriften und Aufzeichnungen, published by Günter Meißner, Leipzig 1989, p. 233) Franz Marc took natural science very seriously, burying himself in the spirit of animal symbolism, which enabled him to indulge in his at times dreamy idea of an original world in a romantic and poetic manner. This way Marc rendered the yellow deer in circular, geometric lines that he derived from the animals‘ posture. The hilly landscape in fore- and background is incorporated in this rhythm of round shapes and gets into a circular movement developed from the shape of the animals‘ bodies. The artist united animals and their environment in a synthesis that pervades all levels of the picture, using a soft, flowing, organic formal language borrowed from Cubism. Franz Marc was fascinated by the cubist design and its quality to enhance the content, to concentrate it and to fill it with its symbolically charged colors. Last but not least, the color palette plays a highly symbolic role in his compositional worlds, such as the yellow in the work offered here: "Yellow is the feminine principle, gentle, cheerful and sensual," wrote Marc in a lengthy reflection on color theories in the 19th century in a letter to his recently won friend August Macke in Bonn from December 12, 1910 (August Macke, Franz Marc, Briefwechsel, Cologne 1964, p. 28). [MvL]



367
Franz Marc
Zwei gelbe Tiere (Zwei gelbe Rehe), 1912/13.
Watercolor and pencil
Estimate:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000
Sold:
€ 865,000 / $ 934,200

(incl. surcharge)