Blonde Frau. 1940.
Oil on canvas.
Signed in lower right. Titled and dated on a label on the reverse. 81 x 66 cm (31.8 x 25.9 in).
[AR].

• Otto Gleichmann's portraits of women appear enraptured, staged in dreamlike, dark pictorial spaces.
• Between the world wars, the artist, often described as a loner of Expressionism, had gained initial recognition and joined the "Hanover Secession" in 1918, of which Kurt Schwitters was also a member.
• Under the National Socialists, his works were considered "degenerate" and were confiscated from museums; many of his early works were lost in an air raid in 1943.
• To this day, his works are represented in renowned museum collections such as the Sprengel Museum in Hanover and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

The work will be included in the catalogue raisonné edited by Petra Wenzel, Isernhagen, under inv. no. 186. We are grateful for the kind information.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Lower Saxony.

EXHIBITION: Landesmuseum Hanover, 1947, cat. no. 29.
Galerie Dehnen, Göttingen, 1948, cat. no. 25.
Städtisches Kunsthaus Bielefeld, 1951, cat. no. 11.
Kunstverein Hanover 1957, cat. no. 118.

In good to very good condition, a barely noticeable very small loss of color in the upper left. The condition report was compiled in daylight with the help of an ultraviolet light and to the best of knowledge.