Franz Marc
Schafzeichnung I. Verso: Schaf und großes Schema eines Kuhkopfes
1905
Double-sided sketch sheet. Brush and India ink drawing with white bodycolour on firm grey brown paper, resp. charcoal and pencil drawing 30.5 x 27 cm The lower margin inscribed, titled and signed recto by Maria Marc and verso with the round estate stamp "Nachlaß FRANZ MARC bestätigt Maria Marc". - A weak horizontal fold trace in the centre. The upper margin uncut, the right upper corner and left lower corner with small losses of paper. The sheet with isolated small brown stains.
Franz Marc had an extraordinary talent for capturing the simple and pure, essential form. With an attentive gaze and a sure hand he commits the animal's many-faceted manifestations to the paper in these drawings. In his depictions of animals Marc wanted to capture the rhythm of nature, in order to symbolically express his pantheistic experience of the world within it. The artist had already begun observing sheep in 1902, on the Staffelalm in the Bavarian town of Kochel. He internalised their forms and features, in order to subsequently draw the animals from memory.
Catalogue Raisonné
Hoberg/Jansen (Aquarelle, Gouachen, Zeichnungen, Postkarten) 26; Lankheit 286; Schardt III 1905-4
Provenance
Maria Marc, Ried; Galerie Otto Stangl, Munich, Marc estate no. 8; Private collection, Bavaria; Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia
Literature
Annegret Hoberg/Isabelle Jansen, Franz Marc. Werkverzeichnis. Aquarelle, Gouachen, Zeichnungen, Postkarten, Munich 2004, p. 11 with full-page colour illus. of reverse side
Exhibitions
Munich 1916 (Münchner Neue Secession), Franz Marc Gedächtnisausstellung, no cat., no. 5; Dresden 1927 (Galerie Neue Kunst Fides), Franz Marc. Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Graphik, no cat., no. 24; Hanover 1936 (Kestner Gesellschaft), Franz Marc Gedächtnisausstellung, no cat., no. 109; Berlin 1936 (Galerie von der Heyde zus. mit Galerie Nierendorf), Franz Marc Gedächtnisausstellung, pamphlet no. 39; Munich 1946 (Galerie Günther Franke), Franz Marc, pamphlet no. 39; Mannheim 1947 (Städtische Kunsthalle), Franz Marc Gedächtnisausstellung, cat. no. 35; Munich/Stuttgart/Freiburg 1949/50 (Galerie Otto Stangl/Galerie F.C. Valentien/Landesamt für Museen, Franz Marc. Aquarelle und Zeichnungen, cat. no. 5; Berlin/Essen/Tübingen 1989/90 (Brücke Museum/ Folkwang Museum/ Kunsthalle Tübingen), Franz Marc. Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, cat. no. 6 with illus.