Sale: 530 / Evening Sale / The Hermann Gerlinger Collection, June 10. 2022 in Munich Lot 37

 

37
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Gewecke und Erna, 1913.
Pencil drawing
Estimate:
€ 15,000 / $ 16,200
Sold:
€ 22,500 / $ 24,300

(incl. surcharge)
Gewecke und Erna. 1913.
Pencil drawing.
Verso with the estate stamp (Lugt 1570 b) and the hand-written number "B Bc/Bh 20". On wove paper. 54.6 x 38.6 cm (21.4 x 15.1 in), the full sheet.
Verso with fragments of a small sketch in color pencil. [CH].

• Large-size and dynamic drawing of the artist's private surroundings.
• The scene shows Kirchner's partner Erna Schilling talking to Hans Gewecke, a student at the drawing school "MUIM", which E. L. Kirchner and Max Pechstein had founded in Berlin in 1911.
• Contemporary photographs help to identify the detail of the interior decoration suggested behind Erna as a part of the artist's lavishly decorated studio
.

The work is documented at the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive, Wichtrach/Bern.

PROVENANCE: Artist's studio (Davos 1938, Kunstmuseum Basel 1946).
Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett Roman Norbert Ketterer (1954).
Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin (1964).
Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Würzburg (with the collector stamp).

EXHIBITION: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1880-1938, Nationalgalerie Berlin, November 29, 1979 - January 20, 1980; Haus der Kunst, Munich, February 9 - April 13, 1980; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, April 26 - June 8, 1980; Kunsthaus Zürich, June 20 - August 10, 1980, cat. no. 165.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Zeichnung, Aquarelle, Pastelle, Kunsthalle Nuremberg, June 20 - September 29, 1991, cat. no. 52 (with illu.).
Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from CollectionHermann Gerlinger, 1995-2001).
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner auf Fehmarn, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseen, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig 1997, cat. no. 29.
Frauen in Kunst und Leben der "Brücke", Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, September 10 - November 5, 2000, cat. no. 118.
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. 165, pp. 256f. (with illu.).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Hauswedell & Nolte, Hamburg, 199th auction, Modern Art, June 7, 1974, lot 938 (with illu.).
Lucius Grisebach, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1880-1938, Cologne 1995, p. 96 (with illu.).
Heinz Spielmann (editor), Die Maler der Brücke. Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 260, SHG no. 372 (with illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (editor), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 334, SHG no. 752 (with illu.).

In October 1911, Kirchner left Dresden and moved to Berlin, into the same house on Durlacher Strasse 14 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf where Max Pechstein had lived for a long time. In December 1911, together with Pechstein, he founded the drawing school "Moderner Unterricht in Malerei", short "MUIM" (Modern Lessons in Painting). Kirchner and Pechstein seem to have felt sufficiently mature and established in their professions to teach others. In October, Kirchner wrote to his patrons, the married couple Luise and Gustav Schiefler in Hamburg: "Pechstein and I, we hope to contribute to the new art movement" (Kirchner to Luise Schiefler, in: Briefwechsel, edited by Wolfgang Henze, Stuttgart 1990, p. 48). Although the two artists did a lot to ensure their success, Kirchner printed two different color woodcuts as advertising posters, only two students are known to date: Hans Gewecke and Werner Gothein. Erna Schilling and Kirchner became friends with both of them and thus the new friends enlivened scenes in the Berlin studio and as male bathers frolicking about in the summer of 1913 on Fehmarn. In the studio in Berlin, however, the focus was increasingly on finding a motif: Kirchner was inspired by encounters in his studio, such as the intensive conversation between Erna and Hans Gewecke, which Kirchner followed and drew with quick strokes. An everyday scene from the artist's personal world. The large-format drawing was probably made after the stay on Fehmarn in October 1913. Kirchner had meanwhile moved his studio to Körnerstraße 45 in Berlin-Friedenau. Behind the seated Erna one can sense a tiny detail of the exuberant room decoration of pictures, wall hangings and tablecloths, a carefully staged space that Kirchner set up for his world of images. [MvL]



37
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Gewecke und Erna, 1913.
Pencil drawing
Estimate:
€ 15,000 / $ 16,200
Sold:
€ 22,500 / $ 24,300

(incl. surcharge)