Sale: 436 / Modern Art I, Dec. 10. 2016 in Munich Lot 255

 

255
Georg Kolbe
Auferstehung, 1919/20.
Bronze
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 155,000 / $ 167,400

(incl. surcharge)
Auferstehung. 1919/20.
Bronze with black-green patina.
Berger 36. Verso of base with monogram in ligature and with foundry mark "H Noack Berlin". One of 7 posthumous casts. Ca. 76 x 17.5 x 20.5 cm (29.9 x 6.8 x 8 in).
As far as style and design are concerned, this work is closely related to the larger bronze "Assunta" from the same year. Berger ascribed both works to Georg Kolbe's "expressionist period".

With a written expertise from Dr. Ursel Berger, Berlin, dated 26 October 2016.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Rhineland/Berlin (presumably acquired in the 1990s, since then in family possession).

EXHIBITION: In 1920 copies of the bronze were shown in the following, in some cases simultaneous, exhibitions:
Freie Secession.
Dresdener Künstlervereinigung.
Breslauer Kunstausstellung.
Deutscher Künstlerbund, Chemnitz.
Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover.

The symbolic aspect that Georg Kolbe's sculptures from before World War I largely lacked is now integrated into a creation in which the formal expression gains in importance. The self-contained form on which the 'Auferstehung' is based played a decisive in Kolbe's art for a short time in the 1920s. First and foremost the three upright female nudes "Auferstehung", "Aufblickende" and the much larger "Assunta" are examples of his formal approach to a so far unknown physical unity. A certain Formalism that Kolbe seemed to pursue intentionally in order to increase the expression was met with incomprehension by most of his contemporaries, since observation habits deeply rooted in George Kolbe's plastic work from before the war. The almost androgynous female figure serves the purpose of a concentration of the expression. The "noble simplicity" and the "calm greatness" in the sense of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's fascination for the art of the antiquity suggest the actual dimensions that Georg Kolbe reached out for with these works.



255
Georg Kolbe
Auferstehung, 1919/20.
Bronze
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 155,000 / $ 167,400

(incl. surcharge)