Werner Scholz
Witwen (Die beiden Witwen)
1931
Oil on card, mounted on thin fibreboard (75 x 74.9 cm) 74.3 x 74.5 cm Framed. Monogrammed and dated 'WS 31' in black lower right. - Originally a double-sided painted cardboard, on the verso with the painting "Matrose und Priester" from 1930 (cf. the information with Grasse). The support with two visually inconspicuous patches in the area of the black coats and a vertical tear below the chin of the left figure. The edges in places bumped with occasional minimal losses of colour.
In 1919 the young artist returned to Berlin from the First World War severely wounded: he had lost his left forearm in 1917. After studying at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Berlin, he moved into his first studio in 1920. Pictures from his early oeuvre have become very rare today. Not only was Scholz's work subjected to the iconoclastic attack of the Nazis, bombs also destroyed his Berlin studio in 1944. It is important to note that his work in oil and in pastel arrived at an initial artistic pinnacle around 1930. Before 1933 Scholz's works were not only presented in important galleries (Neumann-Nierendorf 1930, Schames 1931), they were also purchased by museums for the first time: through the Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. He was strongly influenced by the Expressionism of the “Brücke” artists - more precisely, by the work of Emil Nolde, a painter who was then at the zenith of his career. There are in turn indications that Nolde took note of Scholz early on, supported him and, before 1937, helped to arrange a final exhibition for him with 21 paintings at the Märkisches Museum in Witten.
His early fateful experiences shaped the artist's character in a way that doubtlessly influenced his painting. They enabled him to observe human relationships and living conditions in a critical as well as empathetic manner. Nonetheless the works preserved today from the difficult period between the two world wars display no illustrative or simplistic, not to mention revolutionary, intentions. In this sense the artist is quite unique and akin to Nolde. There is a noticeable concentration on the figure, on the sparing and reticent provision of thematic information, and this is intensified through the artistic form, which is expressively abbreviated and abstracted from the real. The result is an idiosyncratic visual idiom that seems almost monumental and possesses a brooding, but strong, expressive power. The painting “Witwen”, of 1931, is one of those examples of his work from this period which have now become rare.
It was Hans-Georg Gadamer who, in his well-known essay on Scholz, offered this still important summary: “The constructive power of the early pictures is convincing. They do not seek to capture a fleeting stimulus, instead, even the most fleeting movement is harnessed within a framework of solid relationships that give it something monumental [...] All of the scenes that appear in these pictures are of a very plain and popular sort. And, nonetheless, they are not actually genre pictures. They lack the naive approval of the observed life. Looking at this life the painter has dug something else out of it. [...] perhaps it can be said in summary that, in all of these pictures, the veils of human courtesy are torn apart and we are veritably overwhelmed by the nakedness of suffering and passion. However, in all these pictures it is not an accusation, but a grim affirmation. So it is. All of this is real. All of this must be seen, sympathetically suffered without pity.” (Hans-Georg Gadamer, Werner Scholz, Recklinghausen, 1968, pp. 19 f.).
Catalogue Raisonné
Grasse p. 155 ("Witwen")
Provenance
Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer München, Werner Scholz. Ölgemälde, Pastelle, 25 Jan.- 24 Feb. 1968, no. 13 with illus.; Galerie Fricker, Paris (1973); Gabriel Sabet collection, estate; Sotheby's London, Impressionist and Modern Art, March 24, 1999, Lot 321 with illus. (the separated backside lot 318 "Le Marin et Le Prêtre"); Galerie Werner Fischer, Berlin; Private collection, North Rhine - Westphalia
Exhibitions
Solingen 2017/2018, (Kunstmuseum Solingen - Zentrum für verfolgte Künste), Wider den schönen Schein der Welt. Der Expressionist Werner Scholz, p. 37 with colour illus.