Lot 662 R α

Rau Collection for UNICEF


This half-length gentleman's portrait gives us an en face view of the subject's face, while the upper half of his body is set diagonally against a dynamically red yet flat background which, in turn, is extended into space by the presence of a smaller, swiftly applied green background. The facial features of the subject are rendered with precision, whereas his body remains astonishingly free and deliberately sketchy. The momentary nature of the portrait enhances the impression of a particular vitality. In the year when this portrait was painted, in 1907, August Macke also travelled to Paris where he very much warmed to the paintings of Impressionism. Later that year he studied under Lovis Corinth in Paris. This is of importance to the artist's clearly free approach to the portrait. By contrast, other portraits of his later years are far richer in details, showing models who had mainly been recruited from the artist's domestic family environment. For example, Macke frequently painted his wife Elisabeth in numerous variations. Regrettably, however, there are no records about Karl Keck who is depicted here. Like Macke's pencil drawings of Josef Hubert Cordier in his "Skizzenbuch I B" (Sketchbook I B) of 1907, the subject may well have been a guest at his mother's guest house. (See Heiderich, Skizzenbücher vol. I, pp. 190 f., 18 a). Yet as well as providing a biographical reference to the artist's life, "Karl Keck" is a skilful and important work from the early Impressionist phase of this Rhenish Expressionist.