Auf dem Bett sitzend. 1948.
Oil on canvas.
Wohlert 2086. Bottom right monogrammed and dated (in ligature). With hand-written number and title on the stretcher, with fragments of a titled label and with the estate label, there numbered "199". 100 x 70 cm (39.3 x 27.5 in).
[KT].
• The closed forms and the characteristic cool and high-contrast coloring expresses the reflexive, melancholic aura of Hofer's creation.
• With the model's pose Hofer redefines the motif of the nude - actually one of an ostentatious nature - as an inward-looking one.
• After he had been defamed by the Nazis, Hofer experienced great recognition the year the work was made; in 1945 he was appointed director of the Berlin Arts Academy and in 1948 he received an honorary doctorate from the Berlin University.
• Works by Karl Hofer are in many renowned German and international collections like the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate.
Private collection Berlin.
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia (acquired in 1988).

EXHIBITION: Karl Hofer. Eine Ausstellung anlässlich seines 70. Geburtstages, Magistrat von Groß-Berlin, October 11 - October 31, 1948, no. 25.
Karl Hofer anlässlich seines 75. Geburtstages, Hochschule für bildende Künste, Berlin, September 12 - October 15, 1953, no. 92.

LITERATURE: Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, auction on May 28, 1988, lot 415 (with illu.).