Fritz Schaefler
Blauer Abend am Main
1918
Watercolour and India ink on firm drawing paper 43.2 x 32.9 cm Framed under glass. Signed and dated 'f.Schaefler 18.' in pen and ink lower right and titled 'Blauer Abend am Main' in strong pencil verso lower right. - An additional personal dedication "zur Weihnacht 1918" in pencil to Martha - the later Mrs Dix - by Hans Koch (her first husband) on sheet verso. - Firmly narrowly mounted beneath an older simple mat on recto; the sheet slightly creased towards the margins.
Motif and composition are similar to Schaefler's etching “Flußlandschaft“ (Thiel 571, published in "Die Schaffenden", Vol. I, 3rd portfolio, Berlin-Potsdam 1918, cf. also Beate Jahn/ Friedemann Berger (ed.), Die Schaffenden. Eine Auswahl der Jahrgänge I bis III und Katalog des Mappenwerkes, Leipzig/Weimar 1984, p. 171 with illus.). According to Christiane Schmidt etching and watercolour were both created after the same sketch originating from a trip to the Main River in spring 1918; our watercolour is a beautifully painted, distinctive example from the artist's early expressionist years.
Catalogue Raisonné
Not recorded by Thiel
Certificate
We would like to thank Vera Franke, Solingen, for confirmatory information and Rainer Pfefferkorn, Otto Dix Archiv, Vaduz, for kind advice.
Christiane Schmidt, Cologne, the Schaefler specialist updating the cat. rais., added a confirmatory comment with details dated 12 May 2017; we would like to thank her for her kind assistance.
Provenance
Formerly Collection Dix, Martha Dix; Private possession