Sale: 534 / Contemporary Art Day Sale, Dec. 09. 2022 in Munich Lot 170

 

170
Rainer Fetting
Selbst mit Kaktus, 1982.
Dispersion on canvas
Estimate:
€ 60,000 / $ 64,800
Sold:
€ 87,500 / $ 94,500

(incl. surcharge)
Selbst mit Kaktus. 1982.
Dispersion on canvas.
Monogrammed, dated and inscribed "Selbst + Kaktus“ in lower right. Verso once more signed and dated, as well as inscribed "Selbst mit Kaktus“ and with the work number "L. 113“. 260 x 210 cm (102.3 x 82.6 in).
[AM].
• Remarkably colorful work from the early 1980s.
• Expressive and dynamic self-portrait in a particularly large format.
• His works from the 1980s are among the artist's most wanted works on the international auction market
.

This work's authenticity has kindly been confirmed by the artist.

PROVENANCE: Raab Boukamel Gallery, London (with the label on the reverse).
Private collecion Northern Germany.

LITERATURE: Rainer Fetting. SelbstSelfPortraits 1973-1998, May 8 - June 20, 1999, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin 1999, color illu. on p. 64.
Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, auction Modern Art, April 4, 2006, lot 294.

Rainer Fetting's self-portraits are a fascinating example of the artist's approach to traditional genres in painting. He appropriates them, liberates them from their conventions, strips them down to their quintessence, and transforms them into something entirely new through his unique style. The present self-portrait also reflects this radicalness: through the clear formal division of the picture and the tense positioning of colorful accents, Fetting creates an enormous expressive power. In a broad brushstroke he sets isolated contours, which, sometimes light, sometimes dark, reinforce the structure of the picture. In the center of the picture, he confronts us with his tremendous presence as sitter, but the characterization of his own person recedes into the background. Through his paintings, which has a powerful expression that is hard to resist, he "succeeds in putting the viewer in a staged atmosphere of emotion, ecstasy, the immediacy of colors and the poignancy of faces and bodies." (Demosthenes Davvetas, Sprachlichkeit der Bilder, in: Rainer Fetting, Essen 1986, p. 11.)



170
Rainer Fetting
Selbst mit Kaktus, 1982.
Dispersion on canvas
Estimate:
€ 60,000 / $ 64,800
Sold:
€ 87,500 / $ 94,500

(incl. surcharge)