Sale: 530 / Evening Sale / The Hermann Gerlinger Collection, June 10. 2022 in Munich Lot 43

 

43
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Leuchtturm, 1922.
Watercolor and ink brush over pencil
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 162,500 / $ 175,500

(incl. surcharge)
Leuchtturm. 1922.
Watercolor and ink brush over pencil.
Lower right signed. Verso inscribed "Leuchtturm" in pencil. On light board. 52 x 41 cm (20.4 x 16.1 in), the full sheet.
[KT].

• Important motif in impressively radiant colors.
• The former architecture student shows his fascination for the light house's unusual structure.
• Characterized by a tremenduous futuristic liveliness.
• Part of the important retrospective exhibition at the Lenbachhaus in Munich in 1989
.

The watercolor is documented in the archive of the Karl and Emy Schmidt-Rottluff Foundation, Berlin.

PROVENANCE: Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Würzburg (with the collector stamp).

EXHIBITION: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff zum 100. Geburtstag. Verzeichnis der ausgestellten Werke, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig, June 3 - August 12, 1984, cat. no. 103 (with illu.).
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Retrospektive, Kunsthalle Bremen, June 16 - September 10, 1989; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, September 27 - December 3, 1989, cat. no. 247 (with illu.; and illu. on plate 84).
Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2001-2017).
Expressiv! Die Künstler der Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Albertina, Vienna, June 1 - August 26, 2007, cat. no. 63 (with color illu.).
Schmidt-Rottluff. Form, Farbe, Ausdruck, Buchheim Museum, Bernried am Starnberger See, September 29, 2018 - February 3, 2019, p. 255 (with illu.).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Heinz Spielmann (editor), Die Maler der Brücke. Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 398, SHG no. 694 (with illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (editors), Die Maler der Brücke. inventory catalog Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 99, SHG no. 209 (with illu.).

Lighthouses that dominate coasts and landscapes with their strangely elongated architecture, exert a great appeal on the "Brücke" artists. Kirchner not only dedicated several works to the Staberhuk lighthouse on Fehmarn, he even moved into an apartment of the lighthouse keeper during his summer stays from 1912 to 1914. In Heckel's landscapes, which were created during his stay in Ostend during the First World War, the lighthouse sometimes dominates the motif. And lighthouses can also be discovered in Pechstein's Nidden landscapes from 1911 onwards. In this view of the striking lighthouse in Jershöft in Pomerania (today the Polish seaside resort of Jaroslawiec), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff surpasses his former artist friends in the execution‘s dynamic.

In the summer of 1920, Schmidt-Rottluff, left Berlin for the fishing village of Jershöft for the first time. It had an unusual lighthouse as a landmark: a brick tower built in 1865 with slight gradations, some 35 meters tall. In one of his first paintings, which he painted at this location in 1920, the tower appears with a windmill, in between a farmstead under a sky with moving clouds. Two years later, this watercolor which shows plenty of euphoria was made: Schmidt-Rottluff rendered the tower in an exaggerated manner, lets the defensive giant in its upwardly tapering gradation literally soar into the sky, swaying in the storm. The wind-blown trees and the house next to the lighthouse are also included in the moving, futuristic-looking composition. The former architecture student was visibly impressed by the unusual design of the tower and expresses this feeling in a both enthusiastic and grotesque way. [MvL]



43
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Leuchtturm, 1922.
Watercolor and ink brush over pencil
Estimate:
€ 40,000 / $ 43,200
Sold:
€ 162,500 / $ 175,500

(incl. surcharge)