Sale: 530 / Evening Sale / The Hermann Gerlinger Collection, June 10. 2022 in Munich Lot 9

 

9
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Kniender Akt, 1905/06.
Black Chalk drawing
Estimate:
€ 10,000 / $ 10,800
Sold:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400

(incl. surcharge)
Kniender Akt. 1905/06.
Black Chalk drawing.
Verso with the estate stamp of the Kunstmuseum Basel (Lugt 1570 b) and the hand-written registration number "B Dre/Bg 17". On creme wove paper. 43.3 x 34.3 cm (17 x 13.5 in), the full sheet.
Verso with another, fragmentarily preserved black chalks drawing. [CH].

• Art-historically significant time of origin: In 1905 Kirchner, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff and Bleyl founded the "Brücke", which was joined by Pechstein and Nolde in 1906.
• The dynamic-spontaneous sketch is an expression of Kirchner's profound interest in human anatomy, posture and motion sequences.
• Kirchner and the "Brücke" artists provided a new and pioneering interpretation of the female nude as an independent pictorial element
.

We are grateful to Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerd Presler for his kind expert advice.
The work is documented at the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive, Wichtrach/Bern.

PROVENANCE: Artist's estate (Davos 1938, Kunstmuseum Basel 1946, with the hand-numbered estate stamp on the reverse).
Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett Roman Norbert Ketterer, Stuttgart (1954).
Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Witrach/Bern.
Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Würzburg (with the collector stamp, acquired from the above in 2002).

EXHIBITION: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner zum 120. Geburtstag. Gemälde, Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern 2000, cat. no. 1.
Die Brücke in Dresden. 1905-1911, Dresdner Schloss, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Galerie Neue Meister, October 20, 2001 - January 6, 2002, cat. no. 101 (with illu.).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2001-2017).
Expressiv! Die Künstler der Brücke. Die Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Albertina, Vienna, June 1 - August 26, 2007, cat. no. 115, pp. 198f. (with illu.).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (editor), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 288, SHG no. 651 (with illu.).
Wolfgang Henze, Kirchner der Zeichner - am Beispiel seines Menschenbildes 1909-1936, Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Wichtrach/Bern 2009, cat. no. 78, pp. 5-19 (with illu. no. 6).
Buchheim Museum (editor), Brückenschlag: Gerlinger - Buchheim! Museumsführer durch die "Brücke"-Sammlungen von Hermann Gerlinger und Lothar-Günther Buchheim, Feldafing 2017, p. 78 (with illu. on p. 79).
"Kniender Akt" was created at a time when Kirchner met his "Brücke" friends Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in the studio on Berliner Strasse almost every day to study the female nude. As he wrote, it was necessary to jot down "quarter-hour nudes", not an account perfect to the last detail, as precisely as possible, according to the classic specifications of perspective. Rather: what was created here in a rapid, almost intoxicating rhythm was characterized by dynamics, movement, speed.

To date the reverse side has remained unnoticed: "Sitzende Frau (Seated Woman). Intricate lines encircle a woman, a chair (?) and make this scene a whirling event: testimony to overcoming the rules of the academy. Both sides convey an idea of the graphic beginnings of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.


Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerd Presler, author of the catalog raisonné of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's sketchbooks.

Kirchner's drawing of a kneeling nude shows his high rank and his early confidence in mastering a situation, even in terms of spatial planning. The nude is clamped in the center square of the picture, half kneeling, half crouching, the left (and probably also the right) hand supports the upper body, the elbows point strictly backwards for (compositional) balance, the gaze is directed towards the artist. With a few quick hatchings, Kirchner indicates an imaginary space and at the same time he eliminates the depth dimension with the shadow zones. Kirchner heightens the impression of a flat relief, a novel interpretation of the nude as an independent pictorial element. In some cases, presumably as is the case here, Kirchner provided decisive impulses that are of central importance for the artistic achievement of the "Brücke". In this context, the "fifteen-minute nudes" should be mentioned in particular, which the young architects regarded as a central exercise in their further training in drawing and whose spontaneity corresponds entirely to Kirchner's intention of immediately reproducing what he saw and experienced. [MvL]



9
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Kniender Akt, 1905/06.
Black Chalk drawing
Estimate:
€ 10,000 / $ 10,800
Sold:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400

(incl. surcharge)