Fascinating discovery
Unique contemporary document of Lea Grundig to be auctioned
Munich, 11 October 2010, (kk) – John Phillips, famous for his striking photo documentaries in the American Life Magazine, found it in Palestine where he acquired it right from the artist in the early 1940s. Via New York Lea Grundig‘s work "In den Abgrund" [Into the Abyss] came to Ketterer Kunst in Munich, where it will be auctioned on 22 October. Never before has a work from this period by one of the 20th century’s most important female artists been offered on the international auction market.
Lea Grundig In den Abgrund (detail). 1943. Feather and India ink drawing and India ink drawing. 45,3 x 60 cm (17.8 x 23.6 in) Estimate: EUR 15 000-20 000
With great commitment, Lea Grundig used her talents to fight for the improvement of degrading living conditions. Similar to Käthe Kollwitz, she employed her creative means to full extent. "I always wanted to depict people so that the observer gets an idea of their misery and suffering and is enraged about it", said Lea Grundig in Gesichte und Geschichte (Berlin 1958. p.93). And indeed, her figures show the artist’s passion and have a direct emotional expression.
The daughter of Jewish merchants studied art against her parent’s will, at first at the Dresden School of Applied Arts and later at the Dresden Academy of Fine Art. She attended the master class of Otto Gußmann together with artists such as Otto Griebel, Wilhelm Lachnit and her later husband Hans Grundig.
She addressed the grave situation of the working class, documented the terrors of the Holocaust and eventually worked up the dramatic impressions made on her escape. Relentlessly, she denounced fascism, insanity and blindness. She illustrated the appalling conditions on the "Pacific", a so-called coffin ship on which the Jews who managed to flee the Holocaust were brought to Palestine refugee camps at the risk of loosing their lives. "In den Abgrund" presumably also originates from this context.
The work gives a haunting idea of the confinement and the people’s panic in this undefined and gloomy room. The feather and India ink drawing is sheet 12 from the series "Im Tal des Todes" [In The Valley of Death]. Originally titled "Deutschland - Ein Schlachthaus" [Germany – A Slaughterhouse], the cycle of 17 hand drawings was made in Palestine between 1942 and 1944 in reaction to the Holocaust.
Lea Grundig‘s works are impressive documents of inhumane conditions. By bringing back such dramatic events to the observers‘ memory, she as well as the photo journalist John Phillips, make a decisive contribution to a collective awareness and for positive changes.
This work is part of the auction Modern Art/ Side lines of the German Avant-garde.
The daughter of Jewish merchants studied art against her parent’s will, at first at the Dresden School of Applied Arts and later at the Dresden Academy of Fine Art. She attended the master class of Otto Gußmann together with artists such as Otto Griebel, Wilhelm Lachnit and her later husband Hans Grundig.
She addressed the grave situation of the working class, documented the terrors of the Holocaust and eventually worked up the dramatic impressions made on her escape. Relentlessly, she denounced fascism, insanity and blindness. She illustrated the appalling conditions on the "Pacific", a so-called coffin ship on which the Jews who managed to flee the Holocaust were brought to Palestine refugee camps at the risk of loosing their lives. "In den Abgrund" presumably also originates from this context.
The work gives a haunting idea of the confinement and the people’s panic in this undefined and gloomy room. The feather and India ink drawing is sheet 12 from the series "Im Tal des Todes" [In The Valley of Death]. Originally titled "Deutschland - Ein Schlachthaus" [Germany – A Slaughterhouse], the cycle of 17 hand drawings was made in Palestine between 1942 and 1944 in reaction to the Holocaust.
Lea Grundig‘s works are impressive documents of inhumane conditions. By bringing back such dramatic events to the observers‘ memory, she as well as the photo journalist John Phillips, make a decisive contribution to a collective awareness and for positive changes.
This work is part of the auction Modern Art/ Side lines of the German Avant-garde.
Preview:
(selected works)
(selected works)
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