Weg nach Lugano. Um 1930.
Oil on canvas.
Wohlert 921. Monogrammed (in ligature) in lower right. Verso of the stretcher dated "um 1930", presumably by a hand other than that of the artist, as well as inscribed with the artist's name and address. 62 x 100 cm (24.4 x 39.3 in).
Hofer made a total four versions of this mountain panorama in a both reserved yet impressive style. This work offered here is one of the two earlier versions (the other was made in 1926, Wohlert 726). Two more works with the same motif were made around 1935 (Wohlert 1168) and in 1945 (Wohlert 1910). [CH].
• One of Hofer's famous landscapes of the Ticino, which the artist had made his seocnd home in the 1920s.
• Other landscapes from these days are in possession of, among others, the museum kunst palast in Düsseldorf, the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and the Kunstmuseum Winterthur.

PROVENANCE: Artist's studio (until at last 1935)
Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin.
Galerie Grosshennig, Düsseldorf.
Private collection Minden/Bad Oeynhausen (from 1968).
Private collection Switzerland (inherited from aforementioned in 1973).
Ever since family-owned.

EXHIBITION: Marc Chagall, Karl Hofer, Franz Marc, Marianne von Werefkin, Kunsthaus Zürich, January 13 - February 10, 1935, Mannheimer Kunstverein, March 1935, Freiburger Kunstverein, May 30 - June 30, 1935, cat. no. 65, p. 6.
Werner Zeppenfeld: Plastik, Max Beckmann: Graphik, Karl Hofer: Ölgemälde, Kunstverein in Hamburg, April 5 - May 3, 1936, cat. no. 6.
Karl Hofer and Xaver Fuhr, Detroit Institute of Arts u. Russell A. Alger House, Grosse Pointe Farms, Detroit, March 17 - April 2, 1939, cat. no. 16.
Expressionisten. Aquarelle, Bilder, Graphik, Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin 1965, cat. no. 16 (titled "Berglandschaft mit Häusern", dated "um 1928", with illu.).

LITERATURE: Koch, Neue Arbeiten von Karl Hofer, in: Neues Mannheimer Volksblatt, March 8, 1935.