François Morellet heads Post War auction at Ketterer
Hamburg, 25 February 2008, (kk) - Carrying an estimate of € 20,000-25,000, an oil painting on wood by François Morellet heads the roll in the Contemporary Art division at the Ketterer Kunst auctions of Modern Art & Post War to be held in Hamburg on 4 and 5 April 2008.
That François Morellet is more interested in the method than the final visual results achieved in his work is true of his entire œuvre. Nevertheless, the artist attaches enormous importance to ensuring that the result triggers off pleasurable sensations in viewers and is perceived as aesthetically satisfying and attractive. Since the early 1950s, Morellet has been exploring the design of the picture field as an infinite structure, which can be continued intellectually ad infinitum beyond the bounds of the picture support. Thus "4 trames [screens, rasters] 22.5°-45°-67.5°-90°", measuring 80 by 80 cm, also emerged between 1959 and 1969 from an entirely controlled creative process, which Morellet, a co-founder of Concrete Art, based on a previously established principle.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay’s 1964 "Abstrakte Komposition" ["Abstract Composition": estimate: € 20,000-25,000] and "Vor Weiß" ["Before White"] a 1954 Fritz Winter oil painting (estimate: € 18,000-25,000), are to go under the hammer carrying similar estimates. One of Fritz Winter’s most intensive creative phases was the period from 1951 to 1955. During those years, Winter worked out a technique that made possible extraordinarily spontaneous works notable for their astonishing assurance and consistency: a multi-layered structure with surfaces and lines staggered in depth produced the exciting spatiality of the so-called Form Sign or Band Sign Pictures.
Niki de Saint Phalle’s "Berlin Nana" (1973) is bound to create a good mood and not just in the German capital. A Multiple (exemplar 498/500; estimate: € 18,000-25,000) consisting of painted polyester, this work will definitely be in demand outside Germany as well.
Carrying a slightly lower estimate at € 20,000-22,000, Jörg Immendorff’s "Café de Flore" (1991) is an intellectual offspring of "Café Deutschland", painted ten years before, albeit not a companion-piece. "Café de Flore" should probably be viewed as a small but vibrant tribute to France, to "Paris, politically and poetically so invigorating, which epresented a place of pilgrimage of sorts and a hotbed of new ideas for so long to the artist" (Werkverzeichnis Immendorff Geuer & Breckner).
In addition to a Jörg Immendorff colour silkscreen series of the same title (estimate: € 2,500-3,500) and an Immendorff felt-tipped pen drawing "Adler und Maleraffe" ["Eagle and Painter Monkey"]: estimate: € 1200-2000), three Immendorff bronzes (estimates: € 4000 to € 9000) are to be called.
The Contemporary Art division will be rounded off by works by Jean Michel Basquiat ("Untitled (Rinso)": estimate: € 9,000-11,000), Karl Fred Dahmen ("Große Telelandschaft" ["Great Telelandscape"]; estimate: € 15,000-20,000), Mauritz Cornelius Escher ("Andere Welt" ["Another World"]; estimate: € 14,000-19,000), Asger Jorn, Martin Kippenberger, Helmut Sturm, Ruben Talberg, Lambert Maria Wintersberger and Herbert Zangs.
At the head of the Modern Art offer, which is presented in a separate catalogue entitled Modern Art , is an object by Rolf Nesch. Carrying an estimate of € 24,000-32,000, "St. Peter" (1947) is one of Nesch’s socalled "Materialbilder" ["Material Pictures"]. The artist himself summed up the wide variety of collages he produced from 1934 in combinations of various materials under that heading.
A work by Christian Rohlfs, "Alter Mann und junges Mädchen" ["Old Man and Young Girl"], carrying an estimate of € 25,000-30,000, was painted in 1917, when the expressive element showed up in the his work as simplification of forms underscored by a monochrome, here red, background.
A greenish blue cast supports the narrative element in the 1912 Max Beckmann oil painting "Kaninchendiebe im Hermsdorfer Wald (Hühnerdiebe)" ["Poaching Hares in Hermsdorf Forest (Poultry Thieves)"] making the scene look even more treacherous than is signalised by the figure of the fleeing poacher looking round to brazen it out despite his fear. The estimate for this Beckmann in a small format ranges from € 20,000-30,000.
Whereas Lyonel Feininger’s friendly "Christmas Ghosties" (estimate: € 18,000-23,000) still reveals echoes of winter, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s "Die weißen Blumen" ["The White Flowers"]; estimate: € 18,000-22,000) already anticipates spring.
The right pottery vase for them comes from Pablo Picasso. Made in 1969, this work with its funny face entitled "Laughing-eyed face" could be yours for just € 10,000-15,000.
By contrast, Thomas Theodor Heine’s "Gehender Teufel" ["Striding Devil"] seems more like the incarnation of demonic worlds. This 1904 bronze (estimate: € 18,000-20,000) is all the more exceptional for dating from a period in which artists working in this medium and g enre preferred to devote themselves to the noble and beautiful.
Apart from the Salvador Dalí portfolio "Mythologie" (estimate: € 18,000-25,000) and Massimo Campigli’s "Ohne Titel" (["Untitled"]; estimate: € 15,000-20,000), the Modern Art division is featuring works by Erma Bossi, Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Marcel Duchamp, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke, Edouard Manet, Otto Modersohn, Otto Mueller, Paul Signac, Franz von Stuck and other distinguished artists.
Pres-sale viewings of selected works are scheduled for the following dates, times and venues:
| 18-20 March, 11 am-7 pm | Ketterer Kunst, Fasanenstr. 70, Berlin |
| 22 March, 11 am-4 pm | Ketterer Kunst, Fasanenstr. 70, Berlin |
| 25-27 March, 11 am-4 pm | Ketterer Kunst, Prinzregentenstr. 61, München |
| 29 March, 11 am-5 pm | Ketterer Kunst, Am Meßberg 1, Hamburg |
| 31 March - 02 April, 11 am-5 pm | Ketterer Kunst, Am Meßberg 1, Hamburg |
| Modern Art 4 April 2008 Post War 5 April 2008 | both at 4 pm | Ketterer Kunst, Am Meßberg 1, Hamburg |
Since it was founded in 1954, Ketterer Kunst has been firmly established among the front ranks of auction houses dealing in art and rare books with headquarters at the Prinz-Alfons-Palais in Munich and a branch in Hamburg. Gallery rooms in Berlin and representatives in Heidelberg, Krefeld and New York have contributed crucially to our success. The portfolio has been rounded off by the acquisition of the renowned Ernest Rathenau Verlag, New York/Munich.
