Lot 312 Dα

This pastel is to be dated around 1930 and displays the “Cloisonnism”, which is typical of Hölzel's work and which - as Karin v. Maur has previously noted - make the artist seem “directly predestined” to design stained-glass windows. Hölzel first occupied himself with a commission of this kind in 1915/1918, for the Bahlsen company in Hanover. In the late twenties and early thirties, important works for the Stuttgart town hall, the Pelikan factory of Günther Wagner in Hanover and the J.F. Maercklin company in Stuttgart followed. However, alongside these stained-glass cycles, Hölzel's artistic development culminated in the colour pastels which were partly realised in the form of large-format sheets and can be considered the climax of his late work.
The present characteristic work also displays a “pure orchestration of the surface through coloured forms” in this medium and incorporates a religious theme. Regarding this, Karin v. Maur has observed that in Hölzel's abstract works the “figurative” is, “so to speak, once again [incorporated] on a higher level”: “that is, the figures develop out of the lineation during the painting process and form pivotal points in the composition, but they are treated as pictorial elements of equal significance and are entirely interwoven with the overall structure. [...] From 1923 the colour in these pastels is intensified to velvety depths and muted luminosity while the forms are caught up in exhilarating rhythms. It is a music-like painting with an endless scale of variations, which range from the playfully ornamental and the fancifully grotesque to the contemplatively meditative.” (Karin v. Maur, cited in: Stuttgarts Beitrag zur Klassischen Moderne, in: Helmut Heißenbüttel (ed.), Stuttgarter Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert, Malerei, Plastik, Architektur, Stuttgart 1979, p. 18 f.).