Sale: 611 / Day Sale, Dec. 05. 2026 in Munich → Lot 126000747
Raumbeispiel
126000747
Willi Baumeister
Helle Bewegung 3, 1947/48.
Oil with synthetic resin and putty on cardboard...
Estimate:
€ 70,000 - 90,000
$ 81,200 - 104,400
Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.
126000747
Willi Baumeister
Helle Bewegung 3, 1947/48.
Oil with synthetic resin and putty on cardboard...
Estimate:
€ 70,000 - 90,000
$ 81,200 - 104,400
Information on buyer's premium, taxation and resale right compensation will be available four weeks before the auction.
Willi Baumeister
1889 - 1955
Helle Bewegung 3. 1947/48.
Oil with synthetic resin and putty on cardboard reinforced with slats.
Signed and dated in the lower right. Once more dated, titled “Helle Bewegung 3”, as well as inscribed with the dimensions and the note “Zum Umtausch nach Mannheim Galerie Günther Lange, Rötterstr. 20” by a hand other than the artist's on the reverse. 64 x 81 cm (25.1 x 31.8 in).
Due to a later overpainting by the artist, the signature and date are partially obscured but still clearly visible.
• A lighthearted, wonderfully cheerful interlude featuring Baumeister’s formal vocabulary.
• An exceptionally tactile and alluring surface texture created by comb strokes.
• In 1947, Baumeister published “Das Unbekannte in der Kunst” (“The Unknown in Art”)—a passionate plea for abstract art.
• He is regarded as a key figure in postwar German Modernism and participated in documenta I (1955), II (1959), and III (1964).
We are grateful to Felicitas Baumeister and Hadwig Goez of the Baumeister Archive in Stuttgart for their kind expert advice.
PROVENANCE: Galerie Egon Günther, Mannheim.
Private collection, Berlin.
Swiss collection (since 2012, Ketterer Kunst).
EXHIBITION: Gegenstandslose Malerei in Deutschland, Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim 1952, cat. no. 8.
LITERATURE: Peter Beye, Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister. Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, vol. II, Ostfildern 2002, CR no. 1364 (here still titled “Helle Bewegung”; the black-and-white archive photo in the CR on p. 535 shows an earlier state of this work).
Will Grohmann: Willi Baumeister. Leben und Werk, Cologne 1963, catalog no. 1002 (titled “Helle Bewegung V”).
- -
Ketterer Kunst, Munich, Auction 401, Postwar/Contemporary Art, Dec. 8, 2012, lot 201.
1889 - 1955
Helle Bewegung 3. 1947/48.
Oil with synthetic resin and putty on cardboard reinforced with slats.
Signed and dated in the lower right. Once more dated, titled “Helle Bewegung 3”, as well as inscribed with the dimensions and the note “Zum Umtausch nach Mannheim Galerie Günther Lange, Rötterstr. 20” by a hand other than the artist's on the reverse. 64 x 81 cm (25.1 x 31.8 in).
Due to a later overpainting by the artist, the signature and date are partially obscured but still clearly visible.
• A lighthearted, wonderfully cheerful interlude featuring Baumeister’s formal vocabulary.
• An exceptionally tactile and alluring surface texture created by comb strokes.
• In 1947, Baumeister published “Das Unbekannte in der Kunst” (“The Unknown in Art”)—a passionate plea for abstract art.
• He is regarded as a key figure in postwar German Modernism and participated in documenta I (1955), II (1959), and III (1964).
We are grateful to Felicitas Baumeister and Hadwig Goez of the Baumeister Archive in Stuttgart for their kind expert advice.
PROVENANCE: Galerie Egon Günther, Mannheim.
Private collection, Berlin.
Swiss collection (since 2012, Ketterer Kunst).
EXHIBITION: Gegenstandslose Malerei in Deutschland, Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim 1952, cat. no. 8.
LITERATURE: Peter Beye, Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister. Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, vol. II, Ostfildern 2002, CR no. 1364 (here still titled “Helle Bewegung”; the black-and-white archive photo in the CR on p. 535 shows an earlier state of this work).
Will Grohmann: Willi Baumeister. Leben und Werk, Cologne 1963, catalog no. 1002 (titled “Helle Bewegung V”).
- -
Ketterer Kunst, Munich, Auction 401, Postwar/Contemporary Art, Dec. 8, 2012, lot 201.
With his comb strokes, Willi Baumeister introduced a new and unusual element into the composition. By deliberately incorporating a relief-like surface that refracts light and creates new depths through the shadows, Baumeister developed a new stylistic element. The relief-like structure of the forms, with their wall-like layering, is broken up by linear elements and ascending forms. Like an intermezzo, Baumeister visualizes a wealth of musical forms that, in their free-floating carefreeness, perform a “light movement”. Having escaped the confines of a prescribed doctrine, Baumeister was able to create a new and free realm for his very own ideas.
In the postwar era, he resumed his teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Thanks to his extensive body of work and his seminal writings on art theory, Baumeister ranks among the most important German artists of the modern era. His body of work, divided into many groups of works and initially still rooted in representational art, reveals a formal language that becomes increasingly abstract. [KD]
In the postwar era, he resumed his teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Thanks to his extensive body of work and his seminal writings on art theory, Baumeister ranks among the most important German artists of the modern era. His body of work, divided into many groups of works and initially still rooted in representational art, reveals a formal language that becomes increasingly abstract. [KD]
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