Sale: 535 / Evening Sale with Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Dec. 09. 2022 in Munich Lot 51

 

51
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Stillleben mit Rosen und Karaffe, 1907.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000
Sold:
€ 275,000 / $ 297,000

(incl. surcharge)
Stillleben mit Rosen und Karaffe. 1907.
Oil on canvas.
Grohmann pp. 254/281. Signed and dated in upper right. Once more signed and inscribed "Stillleben Ölgem." on the reverse. 60.5 x 57 cm (23.8 x 22.4 in).
[KT].
• With numerous exhibitions in 1907, the "Brücke" group gained wider attention and increased recognition.
• Exceptional still life motif, made during a time when mainly landscapes came into existence.
• Extremely rare work from the early creative period, which is hardly represented on the auction market (source: artprice.com).
• Particularly expressive colors.
• Notable provenance: The first owner was Albert Kaumann, an important Hamburg art patron and collector
.

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

PROVENANCE: Collection Albert Kaumann, Hamburg.
Collection Henry B. and Gertrud Simms, Hamburg (presumably acquired from the above, until 1932: Commeter).
Collection Josef Lanthemann, Geneva.
Rhenish private collection (until 1971: Lempertz).
Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Würzburg (taken over from the above, with the collector's stamp Lugt 6032).

EXHIBITION: Künstlergruppe "Die Brücke", Kunstsalon Emil Richter, Dresden, September 1 - 21, 1907.
324th exhibition of the Oldenburger Kunstverein, Augusteum, Oldenburg, November 15 - December 15, 1908, cat. no. 60.
Werke neuerer Kunst aus Hamburg, Privat-Besitz, Kunsthalle Hamburg, 1917, cat. no. 141.
Maler der Brücke in Dangast von 1907 bis 1912. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Erich Heckel, Max Pechstein, Emma Ritter, Oldenburger Kunstverein, Oldenburg, June 2 - June 30, 1957, no. 7.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff zum 100. Geburtstag, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, June 3 - August 12, 1984, cat. no. 3.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Retrospektive, Kunsthalle Bremen, June 16 - September 10, 1989; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich, September 2 - December 3, 1989, cat. no. 30 (with black-and-white illu., plate 8).
Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2001-2017).
Die Brücke und die Moderne, 1904-1914, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, October 17, 2004 - January 23, 2005, cat. no. 125 (with illu.)
Expressiv! Die Künstler der Brücke. Die Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Albertina, Vienna, June 1 - August 26, 2007, cat. no. 7 (with illu.).
Karl Schmidt-Rottluffs Landschaften und Stillleben, Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken, November 6, 2010 - January 23, 2011, cat. no. 11 (with illu.).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Collection Hermann Gerlinger, 2017-2022).
Brückenschlag: Gerlinger – Buchheim!, Buchheim Museum, Bernried, October 28, 2017 - February 25, 2018, pp. 68f. (with illu.).
Schmidt-Rottluff. Form, Farbe, Ausdruck!, Buchheim Museum, Bernried, September 29, 2018 - February 3, 2019, pp. 130f. (with illu.).
Brücke und Blauer Reiter, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, November 21, 2021 - February 27, 2022; Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, March 27 - June 26, 2022; Buchheim Museum, Bernried, July 16 - November 13, 2022, p. 226 (with illu.).

LITERATURE: Paul Fechter, Kunstsalon Richter, in: Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, year 15, no. 247, September 10, 1907, p. 1.
Galerie Commeter, Hamburg, 54th auction, Freiwillige Versteigerung von Gemälden alter und neuer Meister aus Privatbesitz, October 18, 1932, lot 215.
Will Grohmann, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Stuttgart 1956, pp. 254, 281.
Lempertz, Cologne, 515th auction, April 29, 1971, lot 964 (with illu.).
Gerhard Wietek, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff in Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein, Neumünster 1984, pp. 99, 131 (with illu.).
Gerhard Wietek, Schmidt-Rottluff. Oldenburger Jahre 1907-1912, Mainz 1995, p. 261, no. 7 (with illu.).
Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 210, SHG no. 267 (with illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Collection Hermann Gerlinger, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 36, SHG no. 43 (with illu.).
Katja Schneider (editor), Moderne und Gegenwart. Das Kunstmuseum in Halle, Munich 2008, pp. 108f. (with illu.).

The Fundamental Meaning of the Still Life
The "Stillleben mit Rosen und Karaffe“ (Still Life with Roses and Carafe) is a particularly early still life in Schmidt-Rottluff's oeuvre. Overall, the genre had a great significance for the artist, especially in the 1920s and in his late work after 1945. To him the motif was an object of meditation and a way of entering into dialog with artistic, formal ideas and problems. In them he examined the relationships of the forms found in the visible world, the effects of colors and their contrasts, the different effects of colored lines and surfaces, and he analyzed the possibilities of spatial design of volumes. The aggregation of artistic principles can be observed in the present painting from 1907, when Schmidt-Rottluff was still searching for his own personal pictorial language. The artist incorporated influences from Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, and the great role model Vincent van Gogh, probing to which extent they corresponded to his expressive will.

The Dawn of a New Artistic Era

Two years earlier, in June 1905, Schmidt-Rottluff founded the artist group "Brücke" together with his schoolmate Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Fritz Bleyl, two fellow architecture students at the Dresden University. Their goal was to break new ground in art, as well as to break away from the traditions of the academic art world and their strict view of art at the turn of the century. Above all, they wanted to "show directly and unadulterated [..]" what "urged them to create" (quoted from: The jointly formulated program cut into wood by Kirchner in 1906: Dube H 696, reprinted in: Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.): Dokumente der Künstlergruppe Brücke. Brücke archive no. 22, Munich 2007, pp. 34-37, p. 42), that is to find a pictorial translation for their emotion and experiences. The motif was supposed to be more than a superficial optical impression, instead they aimed at rendering an expression of the subjective inner sensation of the moment. In 1905 and 1906, the artists were initially inspired by French Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism. In late 1906 the Dresden Galerie Arnold showed an exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh, whom the artists already knew from Julius Meier-Graefe's book "Modern Art: being a contribution to a new system of aesthetics" from 1904. The experience of the bright colors and the spirited brushwork in front of the original works would be a formative experience. The possibility of an individual expression, which the young "Brücke" artists saw in van Gogh, was a liberation from formal constraints. Their individual signature remained apparent in their paintings and watercolors, visualizing the dynamics of the sentiment.

The Inner World in an Energetic External Realization
Schmidt-Rottluff's "Stillleben mit Rosen und Karaffe" is composed of striking strokes of thick, impasto paint. The entire surface of the painting vibrates, here and there serpentine lines enliven the individual color zones. Schmidt-Rottluff's youthful storminess becomes comprehensible in the application of paint. The dynamic flow makes the energetic painting process and the artist’s verve comprehensible. The determined force of the brushstrokes illustrates the artist's strong desire to create. Hints of Impressionism echo in the impasto paint, but the artist had already overcome the light, pastel tonality. The unmixed colors green, red, blue and yellow show the inspiration of Neo-Impressionism, whereby the pointillist principle is completely abandoned in favor of the dynamic brushwork that remains visible.

The Illustration of the Creative Frenzy

Schmidt-Rottluff was less concerned with the motif itself, but increasingly succeeded in making his own inner mood, the enthusiastic creative frenzy, visible in the picture. This becomes particularly obvious in comparisons with portraits or landscapes created during that period, which convey the same principle of a passionate duct and a visible temper (fig.). In the further development of his art, this visibility of spontaneity and emotion would become a key component of his Expressionism. Schmidt-Rottluff's personality is also expressed in the compact, heavy brushwork of the dense, impasto application of the paint. In his 1913 "Brücke Chronic", the massive and robust style inspired his colleague Ernst Ludwig Kirchner to coin the term "monumental Impressionism" to describe Schmidt-Rottluff's early paintings.

Janina Dahlmanns



51
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
Stillleben mit Rosen und Karaffe, 1907.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 200,000 / $ 216,000
Sold:
€ 275,000 / $ 297,000

(incl. surcharge)