Oil on canvas
Wohlert 2907 (supplement). Monogrammed 'CH.' (in ligature) lower right. With title and owner annotations by a hand other than that of the artist on the stretcher. 47,5 x 70 cm (18,7 x 27,5 in)

We are grateful to Karl Bernhard Wohlert, Karl-Hofer-Dokumentation, Dortmund, for his help in cataloguing this lot.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Flechtheim (with the label on the stretcher).
Collection Adolf Fischer, Düsseldorf.
Private collection South Germany.

Karl Hofer spent the summers between the years 1925 and 1939 in the Ticino, a landscape that he is particularly fond of, as it seems to him "quite Italian, but yet completely different " (Karl Hofer, Aus Leben und Kunst, Berlin 1952, p. 14). Many Ticino views show landscapes of a unique character, which, at first, seem to be withdrawn, requiring the observer’s full attention. With the staggered arrangement of the buildings they seem like self-contained environments which do not allow access from the outside. This impression is underlined even more, as it is the case with this work, by the complete absence of people. One almost thinks of imaginary landscapes that Hofer references like a metaphor. [KD].