Sale: 392 / Modern Art, June 09. 2012 in Munich Lot 30

 
Leo von König - Bildnis einer gelähmten Dame


30
Leo von König
Bildnis einer gelähmten Dame, 1913.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 15,000 / $ 16,200
Sold:
€ 16,250 / $ 17,550

(incl. surcharge)
Bildnis einer gelähmten Dame. 1913.
Oil on canvas.
Bechter 1913/01. Lower left signed and barely legibly dated as well as inscribed "Paris". 82 x 66 cm (32,2 x 25,9 in).
Rear of frame with adhesive address label, there inscribed by Leo von König as well as with adhesive note: "Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf Nr. 1376" no date.

PROVENANCE: Mathilde von König.
Yvonne Becker.
Walter Becker.
Von Schlippenbach family.
Frieda von Schweinitz.
Private collection Southern Germany.

EXHIBITION: 27th exhibition of the Berlin Secession, Berlin 1915, cat. no. 48 (with illu.).
Leo von König, Galerie Schulte, Berlin 1916.
Große Berliner Kunstausstellung, Berlin 1917, cat. no. 875 (with adhesive exhibition label on frame).
Kunstverein Hanover, Hanover 1926.
Leo von König, jubilee exhibition in Nationalgalerie, Berlin 1931, cat. no. 87.
Frauen in Not, Berlin 1931.
Leo von König, commemorative exhibition. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich 1949, cat. no. 5.
Leo von König, commemorative exhibition. Brunswick/Hanover/Bremen/Oldenburg 1949.

LITERATURE: Die Kunst für Alle, XXXIth year Munich, January 1916 (illu. p. 141).
Die Dame, XLIVth year, issue 13, Berlin 1917, p. 7.
Die Kunst, XXXIIth year, vol. 35, Munich, December 1917, p. 464.
Wilhelm Waetzoldt, Deutsche Malerei seit 1870, Leipzig 1918 (illu. no. 28).
Die Kunst, XXXVth year, vol. 16, Munich, 1920 (illu. p. 287).
Westermanns Monatshefte, LXVIII year., vol. 135, Brunswick, January 1924 (illu. p. 443).
Fritz Nemitz, Leo von König, in: Kunst der Zeit, no. 2, Berlin no date (illu. no. 10, there dated 1910).
Emil Szittya, Leo von König, Paris 1931, p. 18.
Bruno Kroll, Leo von König, Berlin 1941 (illu. p. 25).
Anton Dörfler, Leo von König, Königsberg 1944 (illu. no. 3, there dated 1910)
Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, 37 vols., vol. 21, Leipzig no year, p. 158.

At the age of 16, Leo von König switched from the studio of the sculptor Carl Boerner from Hamburg to Franz Lippisch's studio in Berlin in order to prepare for the Akademie der Bildenden Künste.
His teachers at the academy were Julius Ehrentraut and Ernst Hancke. From 1894 to 1897 von König continued his education under Jules-Joseph Lefebre and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian in Paris. Afterwards the young artist returned to the capital Berlin, where von König made his debut at Berlin's big art exhibition in 1896. In that same year, he became a member of the Munich secession; four years later he joined the Berlin secession and exhibited at their exhibitions from then on. Starting in Berlin, the painter traveled extensively even before World War I; one of his most important trips being the one to Spain and Portugal together with Julius Meier-Graefe from April to October 1908. Leo von König acquired a large-format El Greco-copy on this trip and painted a series of impressions of his travels. When König, together with Emil Nolde and Max Beckmann, demanded "a free organization, free artists, free speech" during a longer conflict among the Berlin secession in 1910 and saw the organization in need of reform, his suggestions were flatly rejected by its committee. His following resignation led to the foundation of the "new secession". Being particularly gifted in portraits, König achieved some remarkable things in this field. His soft, loose, broadly spaced characteristic style, together with his subtle understanding of the human psyche results in creations of extraordinary charm.

The striking portrait, which can be called one of Leo von König’s ,most important works simply for its long exhibition provenance, is a distinctive example of German portrait art at the beginning of the 20\up5 th century. The psychological analysis of the depicted person, even deeper than in portraits by Max Liebermann and his contemporaries, the portrait of a paralyzed lady subsumes all experience of the late 19\up5 th century, in order to focus them in a new and haunting perspective. The almost intimate tension between portrayed person and painter is the portrait‘s actual theme. Leo von König remains true to his own intention, that is to scrutinize the person and to illustrate its fate.

In 1943 Leo von König moved from Berlin to Tutzing on Lake Starnberg, where he died in 1944. [KD].




30
Leo von König
Bildnis einer gelähmten Dame, 1913.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 15,000 / $ 16,200
Sold:
€ 16,250 / $ 17,550

(incl. surcharge)