Sale: 545 / Evening Sale, Dec. 08. 2023 in Munich Lot 28

 

28
Kurt Schwitters
Ohne Titel (Bewegtes Weiss auf Blau und Gelb), Um 1944.
Relief. Oil on panel and malleable matter on panel
Estimate:
€ 120,000 / $ 130,800
Sold:
€ 152,400 / $ 166,116

(incl. surcharge)
Ohne Titel (Bewegtes Weiss auf Blau und Gelb). Um 1944.
Relief. Oil on panel and malleable matter on panel.
28.5 x 23 x 10 cm (11.2 x 9 x 3.9 in). [JS].

• Owing to its maximum degree of three-dimensionality, this work is a unique piece of an outstanding quality by the famous Dada artist.
• Prime document of Schwitter's transgression of the borders between painting, sculpting and architecture.
• From the collection of Hubertus and Renate Wald, Hamburg, which comprises key pieces of German and French Modernism.
• Comprehensive exhibition history: Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1985), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2003), Tate Britain, London (2013) and Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2013/14)
.

PROVENANCE: Artist's estate.
Ernst Schwitters, Lysaker (1946, inherited from the artist - 1984 Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne).
Hubertus and Renate Wald Collection, Hamburg (1984- 2011).
Hubertus Wald Foundation, Hamburg (2011-2012, Christie`s, London, February 8, 2012, lot 406).
Galerie Haas, Zürich (presumably acquired from the above).
Private collection Switzerland (acquired from the above).

EXHIBITION: Kurt Schwitters, Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne, October - December 1978, cat. no. 86 (fig. p. 127).
Kurt Schwitters, Galerie Gmurzynska at FIAC, Grand Palais, Paris, October 1980, cat. no. 49 (fig. p. 115).
Westkunst. Zeitgenössische Kunst seit 1939, Museen der Stadt Köln, Cologne, May - August 1981, cat. bo. 103 (fig. p. 351).
Kurt Schwitters. Die späten Werke, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, April - May 1985, cat. no. 62 (fig. p. 88 (rotated by 180°).
Kurt Schwitters, Galerie Michael Werner, New York, October - November 1990, cat. no. 26 (fig.).
Wald Collection, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, September 17, 2003 - November 23, 2003.
Schwitters in Britain, Tate Britain, London, January 30 - May 12, 2013 / Sprengel Museum, Hanover June 2 - August 25, 2013, p. 156.
Das Künstlerhaus als Gesamtkunstwerk. Europa und Amerika 1800-1946, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, November 21, 2013 - March 2, 2014, p. 370, cat. no. 16, p. 271 (fig. p. 272).

LITERATURE: Karin Orchard & Isabel Schulz (eds.), Kurt Schwitters. Catalogue raisonné, vol. III, Hanover 2006, no. 3065 (black-and-white illu. p. 429).
Die Sammlung Hubertus und Renate Wald, Hamburg 1998, p.74 (fig. p. 75).
Christie`s, London, Impressionist and Modern Day Sale, February 8, 2012, cat. no. 406 (fig.).
Kurt Schwitters

Schwitters’ "Merz Drawings" and "Merz Pictures", as Kurt Schwitters called his Dadaist collages and assemblages created from 1918 onward, are considered the artist's most important and best-known works. Following World War One, Schwitters liberated himself and his art from any academic and art historical constraints. For Schwitters, “Merz” was not only the name of the style of his one-man art movement, but rather synonymous with artistic revolution and new beginnings. In his "Merz" works, Schwitters dissolved the boundaries between art genres, integrated a variety of materials like newspaper clippings, tickets, nails, wood and other objects he found in everyday life, which earned him the rank of one of the most important Dada artists. Schwitters also expressed his almost inexhaustible artistic productivity as a Dada poet, writer and architect, and created a provocative and impressive work of art. For his “Merz” collages he used completely new artistic means, while, in terms of format and two-dimensionality, he still remained conform to the traditional image concept. However, Schwitters also managed to cross that boundary by making relief-like assemblages with an initially flat layout increased to three-dimensionality as in the present work, which was created in exile in Great Britain. In "Bewegstes Weiß auf Blau und Gelb” (Moving White on Blue and Yellow), Schwitters seemingly merged various key elements of a Dadaist concept of art determined by chance and crossing genres: the intuitive combination of found objects and materials, breaking pictorial traditions and overcoming genre boundaries. It almost seems like a sculpture growing out of the pictorial surface, bursting the pictorial space and reaching into the room. Schwitter's acquaintance with the British artist couple Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson at the beginning of the 1940s was certainly inspiring, as their rounded sculptural creations resonate in the present work. In our work, Schwitters also anticipated central elements of American and European post-war art, the principle of the "shaped canvas" from American Color Field Painting, the three-dimensionality and inclusion of light and shadow characteristic of European "Zero" and a sculptural and material exploration of the surrounding space, as pioneered by various international artists in the second half of the 20th century. The present work is not only an outstanding example of Schwitters' cross-genre work between painting and sculpture, but also extends the range - clearly based on the repertoire of forms from Schwitters' "Merz Buildings" - even to architecture. Presumably as early as 1923, Schwitters had begun to fill several rooms in his house in Hanover with a room installation that continued to grow until 1937, eventually including 8 rooms by the time Schwitters emigrated. Even during his exile in Norway and Great Britain, the Dada artist repeatedly "merged" his living and working spaces into stalactite-like total works of art. With the "Merz Buildings", almost all of which are unfortunately no longer preserved in their original form, Schwitters - as in the present relief picture - has found a completely new form of artistic expression that already anticipated elements of contemporary installation art. [JS]



28
Kurt Schwitters
Ohne Titel (Bewegtes Weiss auf Blau und Gelb), Um 1944.
Relief. Oil on panel and malleable matter on panel
Estimate:
€ 120,000 / $ 130,800
Sold:
€ 152,400 / $ 166,116

(incl. surcharge)