Vente: 520 / Evening Sale 18 juin 2021 à Munich Lot 314

 

314
Willi Baumeister
Heitere Bewegung auf Rosa, 1946.
Oil with synthetic resin on board, on panel
Estimation:
€ 80,000 / $ 86,400
Résultat:
€ 93,750 / $ 101,250

( frais d'adjudication compris)
Heitere Bewegung auf Rosa. 1946.
Oil with synthetic resin on board, on panel.
Beye/Baumeister 1293. Lower right signed and dated "7.46". 35.6 x 46.2 cm (14 x 18.1 in).

• From the important work series "Figurenmauern" (Figure Walls, 1942-1950), in which Baumeister renders a masterful play with pre-historic associations.
• Grohmann calls the merry figure walls and landscapes from the post-war era the best that Baumeister ever created.
• Excellent composition in rare soft rose colors and of museum quality.
• Willi Baumeister is the protagonist of German post-war modernism and participated in documenta I (1955), II (1959) and III (1964)
.

PROVENANCE: Dr. Henning Gran, Oslo.
Galerie Schlichenmaier, Grafenau.
Galerie Bayer, Bittigheim-Bissingen (presumably since 1997, Lempertz November 22, 1997).
Private collection Northern Germany (acquired from aforementinoned in 1998).

LITERATURE: Kunsthaus Lempertz, auction 750, Cologne November 22, 1997, cat. p. 22, no. 653 (with color illu. on plate 84).
Will Grohmann, Willi Baumeister - Leben und Werk, Cologne 1963, p. 104, cat. no. 942 (with illu., titled: Heitere Bewegung auf Rosa I).
"So-called 'abstract' painting is not abstract in a sense of alienation from man and life. The artist's sensations are very natural. A straight vertical line conveys a certain perceptual value that everyone can perceive the same way. A curved line or a question mark trigger different sensations. The same is true for the reactions that colors evoke. Contrast effects come from exact forms contrasted with cloudy dissolutions."
Willi Baumeister, Die Natur in der abstrakten Kunst, quote from: Wissen und Leben 1, Stuttgart 1952



From the early 1930s on Baumeister began to develop an interest in structures that had the right properties to both animate and decentralize the pictorial ground. This approach becomes obvious in the painting offered here, where the pictorail ground becomes carrier of an almost linear, graphic composition. Primeval associations are evoked, a phenomenon that Baumeister chose as a fundamental theme in several of his work cycles, since the artist had a deep interest in pre- and protohistory. He collected fossils, ancient vessels and stone axes and examined the origins of art in the early Stone Age by looking into the techniques of Stone Age rock- and cave painting. The loosely arranged forms and colored surfaces in "Heitere Bewegung auf Rosa" (Merry Motion on Rose) convey a cheerful weightlessness that leaves room for all kinds of associations. Associations with musical tempos often determine the work. Here, with a light hand, the primeval aspect is disguised in a burlesque robe and thus free from burdensome meaning. The subtle humor that accompanies this composition is reflected in the delicately dancing manner in which the shadowy figures move across the pink background. By using synthetic resin, Baumeister achieves a plaster-like surface effect, which underlines the prehistoric character of the presented repertoire of forms. The wall-like presence of the composition is heightened by the dry style of painting and the fragmentation and image-filling arrangement of the forms. Further works from the series of the "Figurenmauern" (Figure Walls) are at, among others, the Osthaus Museum in Hagen, the Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart. [JS]



314
Willi Baumeister
Heitere Bewegung auf Rosa, 1946.
Oil with synthetic resin on board, on panel
Estimation:
€ 80,000 / $ 86,400
Résultat:
€ 93,750 / $ 101,250

( frais d'adjudication compris)