Sale: 525 / Evening Sale, Dec. 10. 2021 in Munich Lot 214

 

214
Karl Hartung
Großer Liegender, Um 1950.
Bronze with greenish-gray, partly brownish patina
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 52,500 / $ 56,700

(incl. surcharge)
Großer Liegender. Um 1950.
Bronze with greenish-gray, partly brownish patina.
Krause 450. Base embossed with the artist's name, the special character and the estate stamp. One of 6 + 1 copies. Authorized, posthumous cast from the artist's estate. Ca. 35 x 90 x 40 cm (13.7 x 35.4 x 15.7 in).
Next year the work will be on display in the exhibition "50 Jahre gesammelt für Schloss Gottorf 1970-2020" at Schloss Gottorf, Foundation Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen.
• This is the first time that a copy of this bronze is offered on the auction market.
• This is one of the artist's largest works from this period of creation.
• Unusually rough, haptically appealing surface structure.
• Within the work group of the "Liegende" (Reclined), the male nude in strong abstraction and a particularly expressive and contemplative mood is of special relevance.
• Another copy of this bronze is part of the collection of the 'Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseen Schloss Gottorf'.
• Similar works from around 1950 are in the collections of the Kunsthalle Hamburg and the Folkwang Museums, Essen
.

We are grateful to the Estate Karl Hartung for the kind expert advice.

PROVENANCE: Estate Karl Hartung.
Private collection Northern Germany (acquired directly from the above in 2003).

EXHIBITION: (each presumably different copy)
Karl Hartung (1908-1967). Eine Werkübersicht zum 80. Geburtstag, Galerie Pels-Leusden, Berlin, September 3 - October 29, 1988, cat. no. 49 (with illu.).
Abstraktion Figuration. Kunst in Deutschland (1945-1955), Galerie Pels-Leusden, Berlin, Septmber 9 - November 15, 1989.
Karl Hartung. Skulpturen und Zeichnungen, Richard-Haizmann-Museum, Niebüll, 1989.



At the beginning of his artistic career, Karl Hartung was intensively occupied with the works of antiquity, in particular with archaic Greek sculpture. From 1936, after he had moved to Berlin and during travels to Paris in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Hartung also examined the work of fellow European artists like Aristide Maillol, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi and Henri Laurens. In those years his art underwent the same changes as European avant-gard sculpting in general. At this time Hartung created entirely abstract works and also made his figurative works subject to a greater degree of abstraction. The human figure, its forms and its physiognomy remain the great, all-encompassing theme of his oeuvre, henceforth the symbiosis of representationalism and abstraction became the artistic core of each of his works.
The time this work offered here was made was a particularly exciting one in terms of artistic development, an eventful and successful creative phase in the life of Karl Hartung. In the post-war period the artist worked on his sculptures with great energy and creative energy. He used a wide variety of materials, including wood, stone, terracotta and, of course, bronze. The first solo exhibitions of his work took place in Berlin, and Hartung took part in the first major exhibition of the international artists' association "CoBrA", founded in 1948, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1953 the Kestner Society in Hanover honored him with the first grand museum retrospective. In those very years Hartung created, among others. the group of works of the "reclining" figures, mostly female nudes or pairs of figures, in which the artist shows different body shapes, postures and positions. While the female recliners convince with their voluminous shapes, curved lines and an erotic-sensual presence, the male nude offered here emanates an elegant simplicity and an increased degree of a refined abstraction. In a sequence of high and low parts, the finely modeled nude stretches out in a flowing posture like a hilly landscape. With the sharply bent leg and the shoulder protruding at a similar angle, Hartung connects a rhythmic sequence of high and low parts. The body consists of several strong angles and triangular shapes like the bent limbs, the tapered shoulder, the opening between the legs and also the empty space on the propped elbow.
With this ingenious refinement of the form and the male nude‘s pensive posture, Hartung created a particularly appealing, harmonious that emanates a likable charm and great sensitivity that is unparalleled among the reclined figures from these creative years. [CH]



214
Karl Hartung
Großer Liegender, Um 1950.
Bronze with greenish-gray, partly brownish patina
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 52,500 / $ 56,700

(incl. surcharge)