Watercolor, body colours and ink on firm textured watercolor laid paper with emossed Schoellershammer stamp 69.2 x 50.6 cm, framed under glass. Monogrammed and dated 'H.H./40' with olive-green resp. black brush lower right; titled 'Leviathan' lower right as well as inscribed 'Nr. 20' lower left in pencil. - The cardboard with thumbtack traces in corners and partly also on margins; with a few weak cracks at corners and on utmost edges.
This large-size, expressive work belongs to the key works of the late 1930s and early 1940s, in which the artist thematizes the political events of the time, war and National Socialism. In an exaggerated, nightmarish-surrealist perspective, nature appears perverted and out of joint. Frightened figures are surrounded by demonic creatures.
Provenance
From the estate of the artist
Literature
Mizue [Japan. Zeitschrift], May 1974, nr. 830 with ill.; Götz Adriani (ed.), Hannah Höch, Fotomontagen, Gemälde, Aquarelle, Cologne 1980, nr. 170 with ill. p. 202
Exhibitions
Kyoto, Japan 1974 (National Museum of Modern Art), Hannah Höch. Das künstlerische Schaffen einer Malerin des Dada; Neapel 1979 (Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes mit dem Goethe-Institut Neapel), Hannah Höch. Dada Berlin, cat. nr. 25; Tübingen/Hannover/ Wuppertal 1980/ Frankfurt 1980/1981 (Städtische Kunsthalle Tübingen/ Kunstmuseum Hannover/ Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal; Frankfurter Kunstverein), Hannah Höch. Fotomontagen, Gemälde, Aquarelle, nr. 170; Backnang 1984 (Kunstverein Backnang), Hannah Höch; Schopfheim 1988 (Museum Stadt Schopfheim), Hannah Höch; Berlin 1988 (Orangerie Charlottenburg); Paris/Soltau 1989/1990 (Antony Rathaus/ Museum der Stadt Soltau), Hannah Höch (1889 - 1978), Ausstellung zum 100. Geburtstag; Thurgau, Schweiz 1992 (Kunstmuseum Kanton Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen), Hannah Höch; Aschaffenburg 1993 (Galerie der Stadt Aschaffenburg - Ehemalige Jesuitenkirche am Schloß Johannisburg), Der weibliche Blick. Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgrafik. 1897 - 1947; Gotha 1993 (Museen der Stadt Gotha. Ausstellungshalle auf Schloß Friedenstein), Hannah Höch. Gotha 1889 - 1978 Berlin, cat. nr. 64 with color ill. p. 110; loan to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, since 1993