Watercolor über Bleistift
Wöbkemeier 160. Signed and dated "1921/5" lower right, inscribed "5" lower left. Titled on backing cardboard. Inscribed "W. Dexel. 21 Eisenbahngelände Kat.Nr. 87" on verso of backing cardboard, presumably by the hand of the artist. On firm wove paper, originally laid on cardboard by the artist. 25,8 x 33,8 cm (10,1 x 13,3 in), the full sheetBacking cardboard: 33,3 x 40 cm (13,2 x 16 in).

PROVENANCE: Galerie Rolf Ohse, Bremen
Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart.

EXHIBITION: Walter Dexel, Städtisches Museum, Brunswick, 25 February - 25 March 1962, cat. no. 87.
Walter Dexel, Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Bonn, 22 May - 24 June 1973, cat. no. 45.
Walter Dexel, Kestner- Gesellschaft, Hanover, 25 January - 3 March 1974, cat. no. 67, p. 108.
Walter Dexel und Lyonel Feininger, Galerie Rolf Ohse, Bremen, 24 September - 23 October 1976, cat. no. 6 (with illu.).
Walter Dexel, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, 27 May - 29 July 1979, cat. no. 159, p. 174.

Clear forms and colors are common features of a composition that still has realistic references on the brink to abstraction. A pyramiding of forms that goes back to Cubism is structured in its inside that it can also be interpreted as a real occurrence. The light and clear colors pave the path for this regulative sense, avoiding abrupt breech. With this watercolor Dexel takes up a subordinate role to a zeitgeist, which has discovered a great potential of visual contents in a civilization that is dominated by technology. The densification of forms and their structural relation to one another is characteristic of Dexel‘s works from those days. [KD].