Herbst (Herbstliche Blätter). 1945.
Watercolor and India ink.
Signed in upper right. Lower left inscribed with the work number "454". On firm paper. 49.5 x 64 cm (19.4 x 25.1 in), the full sheet. [JS].

• Remarkable example of Schmidt-Rottluff's combination of radiant colors and clear forms.
• Poised orchestration of an autumnal play of forms and colors.
• Reduced composition: fascinating modernity attained through reduction and formal simplification.
• Watercolors make for a key group within Schmidt-Rottluff's creation, the technique dominated his œuvre especially during the war years.
• In 2011, Christiane Remm's monography on Schmidt-Rottluff's watercolors was published.

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

PROVENANCE: Private collection Baden-Württemberg.

LITERATURE: Christiane Remm, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Aquarelle, published by Magdalena M. Moeller, Brücke-Museum, Berlin 2011, pp. 61-63 (illu. 69, p. 64).
Nagel, Stuttgart, auction on October 15, 2008, lot 667 (titled "Vase mit herbstlichen Blättern").

"Despite massive defamation of his work and the subsequent ban, Schmidt-Rottluff [..] continued to work. [..] Especially the still lifes that were made at that time reveal a very intensive, personal 'dialogue' between the artist and his subject. [.] In [..] 'Autumn' [..] Schmidt-Rottluff shows his mastery in simplifying the pictorial language to the most elementary. Individual, isolated pictorial objects on a neutral, sparse, spatially undefined base [..] perhaps stand for the painter's quiet despair, but also for the unshakable will to persevere in times of restriction."
Christiane Remm, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Aquarelle, Berlin 2011, pp. 61-63.