Sale: 374 / Modern Art, Dec. 04. 2010 in Munich Lot 10

 
Ernst Oppler - Strandleben in Westende


10
Ernst Oppler
Strandleben in Westende, 1912.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 12,000 / $ 12,960
Sold:
€ 20,000 / $ 21,600

(incl. surcharge)
Oil on canvas
Bruns G-111. Signed and dated lower right. 45 x 61,5 cm (17,7 x 24,2 in)

PROVENANCE: Private collection New York.
Private collection Southern Germany.

Ernst Oppler was born the son of an architect in Hanover in 1867. He went to university in Munich, and studied painting under Ludwig von Löfftz at the art academy. In London he studied the art of his model James McNeill Whistler. From 1901 to 1905 he lived in Holland where he made light-flooded landscape under the influence of the French plein-air method and through the contact with the impressionist painter Paul Baum, who was also active in Holland as a plein-air painter. In 1905 Oppler finally moved to the art metropolis Berlin, where joined the Berlin Secession, which had been founded by Max Liebermann and the gallery owner Paul Cassirer with the aim to increase the reputation of impressionist painting in Germany.

In 1912 Oppler traveled to France in order to spend the summer in the coastal town Dieppe in the Normandy. The paintings he made there are characterized by his special power of observation which enabled Oppler to depict the lively goings-on on the beach, the strolling adults and the playing children. His palette from those years is reduced and yet light-flooded. Just the white-heightenings set clear accents, whereas the scenery is bathed in bright light in reduced nuances of pastel tones. Oppler’s sensitive sensation for color, which resembles that of Liebermann, enabled him to deliver this both lively and yet other-worldly depiction of a late summer’s day. Opplers unique portrayal of the beach of Dieppe count among the highlights of German Impressionism and also among the artist’s rarest and most renowned works.

Up until 1912 Ernst Oppler regularly participated in exhibitions of the Secession and was one of the city’s most renowned portrait artist. Impressed by the dance performances of the popular Russian ballets in Berlin Oppler began to depict his impressions of theater visits as of 1912. At first he made drawings and then transferred these eventful snapshots to expressive etchings, which made him one of the most renowned artistic chroniclers of the history of German ballet. Ernst Oppler, the passionate observer of nature and society died in Berlin in 1929. His estate is attended by the ‘Deutsches Tanzarchiv’ in Cologne. [JS].




10
Ernst Oppler
Strandleben in Westende, 1912.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 12,000 / $ 12,960
Sold:
€ 20,000 / $ 21,600

(incl. surcharge)