Lot 220 Dα

The lithograph “Fünf gelbe Akte am Wasser” was printed from three stones - in black, yellow and cobalt blue, and it is among the few motifs in Otto Mueller's printed oeuvre created for polychrome printing from the start. As is well known, the sheets of the famous “Zigeunermappe” represent a colouristic climax in this respect. Generally, however, the artist characteristically limited himself to a handful of striking accents of colour and a few colours in his compositions. It is well known that he repeatedly experimented with colour by using primarily watercolours or pastel chalk to delicately rework individual impressions of his lithographs in up to three different tones. A series of unique artworks was created in this way (cf. “Hybriden - Die handkolorierten Lithografien Otto Muellers, in: exhib. cat. Otto Mueller: Eine Retrospektive, Munich 2003, pp. 183 ff.). According to Florian Karsch, Otto Mueller presumably first discovered the technique of the polychrome lithographic print after becoming a professor at the Breslau (Wroclaw) academy, after which he had access to the extended possibilities of the workshop there. “Fünf gelbe Akte am Wasser” is printed on yellowish laid paper and stylistically - in the boldness of the figure drawing and the complementary tones in the application of colour - it stands in the tradition of the “Brücke” and Expressionism. “Fünf gelbe Akte am Wasser” actually repeats a large-format painting - the same motif is seen in reverse - that was created around 1914, was last exhibited in Wroclaw in 1931 and whose whereabouts are now unknown (cf. von Lüttichau/Pirsig Mappe 609 with b/w illus.).