Sale: 432 / Modern Art I, June 11. 2016 in Munich Lot 329

 

329
Karl Hofer
Mann (Jüngling) mit Hund, 1918.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 120,000 / $ 129,600
Sold:
€ 175,000 / $ 189,000

(incl. surcharge)
Mann (Jüngling) mit Hund. 1918.
Oil on canvas.
Wohlert 336. Monogrammed (in ligature) lower right. 100 x 75 cm (39.3 x 29.5 in).
With a partly smeared over and sprinkled composition on rear: Standing female nude holding a fish.
Important, deep portrait.

PROVENANCE: Paul Cassirer, Berlin.
Collection Georg Hartmann, Frankfurt/Main (with collection label and inventory number "71" on stretcher).
Karl und Faber Munich, 130th auction, 2 - 3 December, 1971, lot 832.
Familie/ Galerie Ambaum, Cologne.
Private collection.

EXHIBITION: Carl Hofer. Galerie Tanner, Zurich 1918.
Carl Hofer. Martha Wolff. Kunstsalon Ludwig Schames, Frankfurt a. Main 1918, no. 2.
Carl Hofer. Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1919, no. 17.
Karl Hofer. Galerie Thannhauser, Munich 1920.
Karl Hofer - Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Kunstsalon Ludwig Schames, Frankfurt a. Main 1920, no. 6.
Vom Abbild zum Sinnbild. Städelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt a. Main 1931, p. 30, no. 99.
On occasion of Karl Hofer's 75th birthday. Hochschule für bildende Künste, Berlin 1953, no. 6.

LITERATURE: Max Osborn. Karl Hofer, in: Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, 47. 1920/21, p. 294 with illu.
Annuaire international des Ventes, 10. 1972, p. 561.
Karl Hofer - Theodor Reinhart. Briefwechsel in Auswahl. Berlin 1989, pp. 393f and p. 396.

The three versions of one and the same subject, which Karl Hofer created at the same time, are documents of the artist's strong interest in the motif. The deeply emotional illustration delivers proof of Hofer's mature portray art of these years. An early Mannerism latently echoes in both the figure and in the dog's elongate body. A figure detached from the world and a gentle melancholy, which is characteristic of almost all portraits by Karl Hofer, is absorbed by Hofer's contoured forms. The portrait marks a turning point in his creation that set in after World War I and that would be decisive for his paintings. At the beginning of a new way of seeing, the forms become consolidated and simplified.



329
Karl Hofer
Mann (Jüngling) mit Hund, 1918.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 120,000 / $ 129,600
Sold:
€ 175,000 / $ 189,000

(incl. surcharge)