Die große Angst. 1918.
Oil on canvas.
Negendanck 39. Barely legibly monogrammed and dated "W [?] 8" lower right. Dated, titled and inscribed on stretcher by a hand other than that of the artist. 57 x 42,5 cm (22,4 x 16,7 in).
One of the extremely rare paintings by the artist offered on the international auction market.

PROVENANCE: From artist's estate.
Eckhardt-Gramatté-Foundation, Winnipeg/Canada (up to ca. 1995).
Private collection Germany.

EXHIBITION: Walter Gramatté 1897-1929, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich 1989, cat. no. 16 (with illu. in colors p. 69).
Die schwarze Sonne. Early works by Walter Gramatté, Galerie C. G. Boerner, Düsseldorf 1990, cat. no. 23 (with illu. in colors p. 23).
Expresionismo Alemán, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in cooperation with Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1995-96, p. 79 (with illu. in colors) and p. 195.
Walter Gramatté. Selbstbildnisse. On occasion of Walter Gramatté's 100th birthday, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich 1997, cat. no. 1 (with illu. in colors).
Die Farbe Schwarz, Landesmuseum Johanneum, Graz 1999, p. 233 (with illu.).
Walter Gramatté 1897-1929, Kirchner Museum, Davos, and Ernst Barlach Haus, Hamburg 2008/09, cat. no. 7 (with illu. in colors p. 23).

LITERATURE: Ferdinand Eckhardt, Walter Gramatté. Bilder und Aquarelle, Winnipeg/Canada 1981, no. B 40 (with illu.).

Walter Gramatté was a member of the so-called second generation of Expressionism. His life and work were widely influenced by the ferocious events of World War I. Gramatté was born son of a baker in Berlin on 8 January, 1897. Her volunteered for the war at the young age of 17, serving as a paramedic-aid at the western front in 1914. Due to a hereditary bone problem, he spent the some time in a military hospital the same year. In 1915 Gramatté began to study at the ‘Königliche Kunstschule‘ at the Berlin Museum of Arts and Crafts. After he had been ordered to serve in the field artillery in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1916, Gramatté organized his first solo show in his studio in 1917.

With "Die große Angst" (The Great Fear, 1918) Gramatté made an impressive work of an enormous power and expressivity, the eccentric motif was used again the same year in the drypoint etching of the same title. The features of the depicted face witrh the high forehead, the narrow chin and the protruding cheekbone indicate that it is a self portrait. All terror and pain that Gramatté suffered in World War I are worked up in this painting. Filled with great fear and despair, the portrayed person looks right at the observer with his bloodshot eyes wide open with terror. The gaunt face seems to come out of the gloomy background for a short moment only, just to be swallowed by the darkness the next moment. The swiftly placed hard strokes of the brush with which the artist applied the paint support the work’s powerful expression, the observer has a hard time eluding its haunting poignancy.

In 1918 Walter Gramatté was finally released from service and joined the circles of the of the then most renowned artists and writers. In 1919 and 1920 he met Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff respectively, with whom he would remain in a life-long friendship. After they had changed apartments a couple of times in Berlin, there Gramattés finally decided to emigrate to Spain in 1924. The etching series for Georg Büchner‘s fragment "Lenz" and the drama "Wozzeck" as well as the portfolio "España" which were made over the following years were some of the artist’s most important graphic works. In 1926 a comprehensive exhibition of his works took place in the Salòn del Ateneo, Madrid. In autumn the same year Gramatté and his wife returned to Berlin. Gramatté, whose health had become worse over the past few years, died of intestinal tuberculosis on 9 February at the young age of 32. Gramatté‘s art was ostracized by the National Socialists. With the 1947 novel "Die Stadt hinter dem Strom" Hermann Kasack honored him by making the protagonist, the painter Katell, appear like an encrypted portrait of the artist. [KH].