Ernst Barlach - Der Buchleser (Lesender Mann im Wind) - image-1
Ernst Barlach - Der Buchleser (Lesender Mann im Wind) - image-2
Ernst Barlach - Der Buchleser (Lesender Mann im Wind) - image-1Ernst Barlach - Der Buchleser (Lesender Mann im Wind) - image-2

Lot 321 Dα

Ernst Barlach - Der Buchleser (Lesender Mann im Wind)

Auction 1059 - overview Cologne
27.11.2015, 18:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 40.000 € - 60.000 €
Result: 39.680 € (incl. premium)

Ernst Barlach

Der Buchleser (Lesender Mann im Wind)
1936

Bronze Height 45.2 cm Signed 'E. Barlach' to the reverse at the bottom sowie as well as with the foundry mark 'H NOACK BERLIN FRIEDENAU'. One of 35 unnumbered casta in total. Posthumous cast. - With fine bronze-coloured patina.

The lithograph “Wem Zeit wie Ewigkeit“, published for the first time on 5 October 1916 in “Bildermann”, provided the thematic preparation for this sculpture (see comparative illus.). In 1934, the seizure of power by the National Socialists took place. Most of Barlach's works of art were removed from museums; sculptures in public places were disposed of or even destroyed. Barlach and his work were publicly denounced in the Munich exhibition “Entartete Kunst”. As early as 1930, Barlach made a comment in one of his letters which has an almost universal effect for his oeuvre: “quite rightly, you think to sense that I have encouragement and inner composure and have the crystallisation of strength out of a world of tremor in mind, maybe even a sort of pride facing an unimaginably severe event that isn't to be denied - but, of course, for me, the one is inconceivable without the other. […] Encouragement in itself does not merit praise nor admiration, it is the severity that it confronts that defines its value.” (Ernst Barlach to Fritz Schuhmacher, Construction Director for Hamburg, Güstrow, 8 Dec. 1930, letters II 242).

Catalogue Raisonné

Laur 600/2; Schult 473

Provenance

Private collection, South Germany

Literature

i.a. Friedrich Schult, Ernst Barlach, Das plastische Werk, Hamburg 1960, p. 246, no. 473 with illus.; Naomi Jackson Groves, Ernst Barlach - Leben im Werk, Plastiken, Zeichnungen und Graphiken, Dramen, Prosawerk und Briefe, Taunus 2013, p. 106 with full-page illus.

Exhibitions

Hanover 1957 (Landesgalerie Hannover), Bildwerke in der Landesgalerie Hannover, p. 278, no. 443 with illus.; Hamburg 1977 (Ernst Barlach Haus Hamburg, Stiftung Hermann F. Reemtsma), Plastiken, Handzeichnungen und Autographen, p. 31, no. 67 with illus.; Schleswig 1989 (Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf), Ernst Barlach, Denkzeichen, no. 84; Schleswig 1995 (Schloss Gottdorf), Stiftung und Sammlung Rolf Horn, p. 210, no. 128 with full-page colour illus.; Bergen/Güstrow 2000 (Bergen Kunstmuseum und Ernst Barlach Stiftung Güstrow), Ernst Barlach, Ein Graphiker und Bildhauer des deutschen Expressionismus, no. 100; Hamburg 2003 (Hauptkirche St. Katharinen), Ernst Barlach, Mystiker der Moderne, p. 211; Güstrow 2004 (Ernst Barlach Stiftung Güstrow), Erwerbungen, Werke von Ernst Barlach, no. 27