Kranker Traum. 1920.
Oil on a wax cloth, relined.
Verso signed, dated "August 1920", titled and inscribed "Brandenburg a. H.". Inscribed "Leerer Raum / irres Fenster / Last [?]" in the image. 116 x 90 cm (45.6 x 35.4 in). [JS].

- Characteristic composition from his best creative period.
• Ehrhardt's stylistically syncretic compositions of the 1920s stage the Dadaist unity of word and image in a cubist-orphistic style: "The word and the image are one" (Hugo Ball).
• In "Kranker Traum", Ehrhardt merges word and image into a sinister apocalyptic vision.
• Almost two years after the end of the First World War, Ehrhardt visualizes existential feelings between life and death in "Kranker Traum".
• Unlike it was the case with Otto Dix, for example, Curt Ehrhard's existential war experiences only found expression in his art after a time delay.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Hebecker, Weimar.
Private collection Lower Saxony (acquired from the above).

"You can't just be a painter, you have to be born a painter! It is predestination! Art is not something that can be 'learned' or 'acquired'. The only task of a 'teacher' can be to let the 'pupil' become an autodidact [..] to introduce him to art, to get him to create from within. In my time, for example, a whole series of painters emerged from the 'Sturm' circle, which I was close to, as self-taught artists, such as Johannes Mohlzahn and Georg Muche [..] There were no role models that we could have followed, that we could have found 'orientation' with. The 'picture' we wanted to create did not yet exist and nobody had seen it!"
Curt Erhardt, 1969, quoted from: Peter Arlt, Des Lebens dunkle Tänze. Der Maler Curt Erhardt 1895-1972, Weimar 2002, p. 169.

Good overall impression, consistent with age and material. Slightly wavy and brittle due to the age of the image carrier (wax tablecloth), paint layer with slight tension cracks and craquelure. Professionally closed or backed canvas damages as well as small, partly professionally retouched losses of color. Relined in margins.