Lot 103
Video
Back side
103
Karl Hartung
Durchbrochene Form, 1950.
Bronze
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 44,000 Sold:
€ 107,950 / $ 118,745 (incl. surcharge)
Durchbrochene Form. 1950.
Bronze.
Krause 440. With the estate stamp on the underside. One of 6+1 copies. Authorized cast from the artists estate. Ca. 36 x 82 x 23 cm (14.1 x 32.2 x 9 in).
Under the title "Reine Formsache. Hommage an Karl Hartung", the Gerisch Foundation in Neumünster will show many works by the artist from July 16 – December 17, 2023.
• The plaster cast of this work was part of the 1952 retrospective at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin.
• Part of the work group through which Hartung attained a formal language entirely free from figuration in the late 1940s.
• Inspired by nature and in a reduced formal expression, the work is of timeless beauty.
• The rolling forms and the spatial presence unfold from every perspective.
• Similar works by the artist from around 1950 are at, among others, the Kunsthalle Hamburg and the Museum Folkwang, Essen.
We are grateful to the Karl Hartung Estate for the kind expert advice.
PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate.
EXHIBITION: Karl Hartung, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, September 2 - October 12, 1952, cat. no. 99.
LITERATURE: Markus Krause, Karl Hartung 1908–1967. Metamorphosen von Mensch und Natur (monography and catalog raisonné), Munich 1998, p. 226, cat.no. 440 (with illu.).
Bronze.
Krause 440. With the estate stamp on the underside. One of 6+1 copies. Authorized cast from the artists estate. Ca. 36 x 82 x 23 cm (14.1 x 32.2 x 9 in).
Under the title "Reine Formsache. Hommage an Karl Hartung", the Gerisch Foundation in Neumünster will show many works by the artist from July 16 – December 17, 2023.
• The plaster cast of this work was part of the 1952 retrospective at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin.
• Part of the work group through which Hartung attained a formal language entirely free from figuration in the late 1940s.
• Inspired by nature and in a reduced formal expression, the work is of timeless beauty.
• The rolling forms and the spatial presence unfold from every perspective.
• Similar works by the artist from around 1950 are at, among others, the Kunsthalle Hamburg and the Museum Folkwang, Essen.
We are grateful to the Karl Hartung Estate for the kind expert advice.
PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate.
EXHIBITION: Karl Hartung, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, September 2 - October 12, 1952, cat. no. 99.
LITERATURE: Markus Krause, Karl Hartung 1908–1967. Metamorphosen von Mensch und Natur (monography and catalog raisonné), Munich 1998, p. 226, cat.no. 440 (with illu.).
Shortly after the end of the war, Karl Hartung had his final artistic breakthrough. The first solo exhibitions of his work took place at Galerie Gerd Rosen (1946 and 1948) and at Galerie Springer in Berlin. In 1949, Hartung took part in the first major exhibition of the international artists' association "CoBrA", founded in 1948, at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1952, the Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, showed a comprehensive exhibition of his work, in which a copy of the bronze offered here was also exhibited. In 1953/54, further grand individual exhibitions followed, e. g. at the Museum Folkwang, Essen, the Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover, the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum, Hagen, and the Bremen Kunsthalle. From the 1930s, Hartung's art underwent a change, as he gradually began to abandon naturalistic and realistic sculpting. Hartung created completely abstract works and also made his figurative works subject to a stronger abstraction. The human, primarily female figure, its forms and physiognomy remain the great, all-encompassing theme of his oeuvre, but the radical reduction and the high degree of abstraction in some of his works was exceptional at that point.
From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, he created his "Vegetative", "Free" and "Organic Forms" in which he crossed the border to abstraction and found his very own, free formal language. Also in the work offered here, created at the same time, "Durchbrochene Form” (Perforated Form), there is no imitation of nature, no hints of human physiognomy. Nature only serves as inspiration here: vaguely reminiscent of biological cell forms or a bone, Hartung created an absolutely timeless, particularly graceful composition with large openings in the organically grown structure, which - also with the help of the sensual surface of the lively patina - contradict the massiveness of the material. The present work occupies an important position in the artist's oeuvre, because Hartung succeeded in creating a non-representational autonomous structure, a universally valid form of timeless beauty, in accordance with his own conviction, using organic forms to convey the essential, the universal of man as reveal part of creation. With the development of this very personal abstraction, Karl Hartung established himself alongside contemporaries such as Hans Arp, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore in Great Britain as an important representative of European sculpting of the late 20th century. [CH]
From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, he created his "Vegetative", "Free" and "Organic Forms" in which he crossed the border to abstraction and found his very own, free formal language. Also in the work offered here, created at the same time, "Durchbrochene Form” (Perforated Form), there is no imitation of nature, no hints of human physiognomy. Nature only serves as inspiration here: vaguely reminiscent of biological cell forms or a bone, Hartung created an absolutely timeless, particularly graceful composition with large openings in the organically grown structure, which - also with the help of the sensual surface of the lively patina - contradict the massiveness of the material. The present work occupies an important position in the artist's oeuvre, because Hartung succeeded in creating a non-representational autonomous structure, a universally valid form of timeless beauty, in accordance with his own conviction, using organic forms to convey the essential, the universal of man as reveal part of creation. With the development of this very personal abstraction, Karl Hartung established himself alongside contemporaries such as Hans Arp, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore in Great Britain as an important representative of European sculpting of the late 20th century. [CH]
103
Karl Hartung
Durchbrochene Form, 1950.
Bronze
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 44,000 Sold:
€ 107,950 / $ 118,745 (incl. surcharge)