Fritz Koenig - Große Flora D - image-1
Fritz Koenig - Große Flora D - image-2
Fritz Koenig - Große Flora D - image-1Fritz Koenig - Große Flora D - image-2

Lot 420 R

Fritz Koenig - Große Flora D

Auction 1079 - overview Cologne
03.12.2016, 14:00 - Contemporary Art
Estimate: 100.000 € - 150.000 €
Result: 568.000 € (incl. premium)

Fritz Koenig

Große Flora D
1979/1980

Bronze with gold-brown patina. Approx. 450 x 200 x 200 cm. Signed (embossed) 'KOENIG'. - Traces of weather and traces of age.

This work can be viewed in Dortmund.
For further information please call phone +49 221 92572929


Since the end of the 1960s, basic geometric forms such as the sphere, cone and cylinder have belonged to Fritz Koenig's fixed vocabulary which he combines, mostly in bronze, in ever new constellations to create biomorphic structures. By reducing the forms he succeeds in an enhancement of expression and personal linguistic mastery. His sculpture 'Große Flora D', on display in the centre of Dortmund since the 1980s, also consists of two spherical forms connected by a wedge-shaped rod. Two opening semispheres act as an upper finial with the inner surface curled out, reminiscent of an opening flower. ''The smoothly polished, metallic surface and the unmistakeable themes reminiscent of a plant, a germ, a shoot or a flower allow the sculpture to curiously sway between geometric abstraction and natural expression. (Jürgen Zänker, Öffentliche Denkmäler und Kunstobjekte in Dortmund, Eine Bestandsaufnahme, Dortmund 1984, p. 294). This organic, animated impression is reinforced by the warm, gold colouring of the bronze. In contrast to the huge, straight-lined building complex by the architect Harald Deilmann in front of which 'Große Flora D' stood, the four and a half meter sculpture feels like a delicate seedling growing slowly in the urban environment.
The artist's large format sculptures are found in national as well as international locations, including in front of the German embassy in Madrid. Koenig's fountain sculpture 'The Sphere' in front of the World Trade Centers in New York attained worldwide fame when it was recovered after the terror attack on 11 September 2011, and now serves as a memorial. Although the sculpture was badly damaged, it did not lose any of its aesthetic force and since then is valued as the artist's master piece, with his name now known all over America. After several years on display in Battery Park, it is due to be returned to its original location this year.

Catalogue Raisonné

Clarenbach 682

Provenance

Galerie Hans Mayer, Dusseldorf