Sale: 489 / Evening Sale, June 07. 2019 in Munich Lot 117

 

117
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen
Lourdes, 1916.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 60,000 / $ 64,800
Sold:
€ 75,000 / $ 81,000

(incl. surcharge)
Lourdes. 1916.
Oil on canvas.
Eimert 87. Heusinger von Waldegg 45. Signed "H. Davring" and titled in lower left. 83.2 x 70.2 cm (32.7 x 27.6 in). [CH].

• In private ownership for more than 40 years.
• From H. M. Davringhausen's important time in Berlin.
• Made almost the same time as comparable works by Delaunay
.

PROVENANCE: From the artist's estate
Galerie Wilbrand, Cologne.
Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia (acquired from aforementioned in 1978).

EXHIBITION: Heinrich Maria Davringhausen - Frühe Bilder. Commemorative Exhibition 1894-1970, Galerie am Rhein, Cologne, February to March 1971.
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen 1894-1970. Gemälde 1912-1960, Städtisches Suermondt-Museum, Aachen, June to July 1972, cat. no. 11.
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen. Bilder 1912-1930, Galerie Brockstedt, Hamburg, May to June 1973, cat. no. 10 (illu. no. 8), verso of the stretcher with the exhibition label.
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen. Seine Epoche der neuen Sachlichkeit, Städtisches Museum Simeonstift, Trier und Pfalzgalerie des Bezirksverbandes Pfalz, Kaiserslautern, January to April 1974, cat. no. 9.
Heinrich M. Davringhausen, Vom Expressionismus zur Neuen Sachlichkeit, August Macke Haus, Bonn, February 6 - June 2, 2013, pp. 24 and 54 (with illu.).

LITERATURE: J. Heusinger v. Waldegg, H. M. Davringhausen 1894-1970. Monograph with work catalog 1912-1932, Cologne 1977, cat. no. 45 (with illu. in black and white).
Galerie Wilbrand (editor), sales cattalog, Cologne 1977/78, p. 3 (with illu.).
Thomas W. Gaethgens, Delaunay in Berlin, in: ex. cat. Delaunay und Deutschland, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen / Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Haus der Kunst, München, October 4, 1985 - January 6, 1986, p. 276 (illu. no. 25).

The young artist Davringhausen created this work one year after he had moved to the bustling metropolis Berlin and right into the heart of the then lively avant-garde art scene. He was in contact with artists, writers and philosophers, among them George Grosz, Ludwig Meidner or Walter Benjamin. The events and effects of World War I changed the climate in the creative circles fundamentally. The formerly fruitful international exchange with artists from France and Italy came to a standstill. Futurist tendencies in Italy and an emerging Cubism and France had already shown a lasting impact on the young Davringhausen. The seminal works by Robert Delaunays (1885-1941) seem to have played a key role in his artistic development, as the work offered here delivers impressive proof of. In his Eiffel Tower cycle from 1909 Delaunay shows the architectural epitome of the modern age in a fragmented and deconstructed form. He assembles the single fragments and creates something new and vibrant: A striking document of the completion of his development of his abstraction towards Cubism that would strongly influence the art of Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, who was active in Berlinat that point. He depicts the Lourdes Cathedral towering above vegetation in bold and strong colors and with hard and edgy geometrical forms, an optical trick that can also be observed in Delaunay’s "Eiffel Tower" from 1910. While the adjacent houses enframe the modern steel structure in Delaunay’s work, the Cathedral in our work is surrounded by a forest scenery, the effect is the same: the building is at the work’s focal point. Davringhausen was quite familiar with Delaunay’s works, as he became highly acknowledged in Germany after participating in important exhibitions, in particular the first exhibition of the ‘Blauer Reiter’ in Munich. Delaunay’s impact on fellow students of Davringhausen, among them August Macke, is widely known. The beginning of World War I was accompanied by a general disillusionment that led to revolutionary pacifistic tendencies, both in society in general and among artists of different fields in particular. Many artists like August Macke and Franz Marc were drafted for military service and would never return from the battle fields. As of 1916 Davringhausen was active for the oppositional magazine "Neue Jugend" in which he published some of his works. At the same time he was occupied with paintings of primarily religious themes, among them "Kreuzigung" (Crucifixion, 1916) or "Vision des verlorenen Sohnes" (Vision of the Prodigal Son, 1916). The depiction of the Lourdes Cathedral in strong colors offered here was made the same year. It is a striking document of a new and very own plasticity that Davringhausen attained by means of a spectacular and intense coloring and the characteristic mosaic composition. [CH]



117
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen
Lourdes, 1916.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 60,000 / $ 64,800
Sold:
€ 75,000 / $ 81,000

(incl. surcharge)