Heinrich Hoerle
Krüppel (Die Krüppelmappe)
1920
Series of 12 lithographs. Each on firm brownish paper 58.9 x 45.8 cm. - Together with title sheet loosely laid in original half-linen portfolio 64.4 x 49.5 cm with collage of the title motif "Krüppel" (Backes 16) as a linoleum cut on Japan paper 16.8 x 12.2 (23 x 17.3 cm) Unsigned. The title sheet with index and colophon numbered in pencil. Copy 92/100. - Rare. Published by the artist "Heinrich Hoerle, Cöln-Lindenthal", Cologne 1920. - The sheets with minimal traces of age. The thinner title sheet (simili Japan) with a minor defect in the upper margin and backed with paper strips verso. The portfolio slightly wavy with pressure marks.
Following the brochure for the 1920 edition of “Krüppel“, published by the artist, it seems a total edition of 300 copies with hand-signed lithographs was planned, 50 of which were printed on Japan laid paper with an original colour drawing as the title page. However, there are unsigned series on simpler, heavier types of paper, featuring an edition numeration of 100 in the colophon.
The "Krüppelmappe" is one of the artist's early expressionist masterpieces. Probably designed at the end of 1919, it is not only a critical contemporary commentary on the social misery of those disabled in the war - in the "Sozialistischen Republik" of 30.01.1920, Franz Wilhelm Seiwert published a contribution to the first exhibition of the portfolio in Cologne under the title "Krupp-Krüppel" - it also sensitively reflects the deeply human and emotional aspects of physical mutilation in the artistic sequence of the various pictures. Otto Dix continued the theme in the large-format painting "Die Kriegskrüppel", among others, from the same year, formerly in the Stadtmuseum Dresden, confiscated in 1937 and lost since then (cf. Löffler 1920/8 with illus., cf. also the etching of the same name Karsch 6).
Catalogue Raisonné
Backes Druckgraphik 16, 17
Certificate
We would like to thank Dirk Backes, Aachen, for kind scientific advice.
Provenance
Private possession, Rhineland
Literature
Die Aktion. Wochenschrift für Politik, Literatur und Kunst, Berlin 1920, 10th year, with illus.; a bis z, organ der gruppe progressiver künstler, Cologne, Dec. 1931, issue no. 20 with illus.; Walter Vitt, Heinrich Hoerle und Franz Wilhelm Seiwert. Die Progressiven, Cologne 1975, p. 19 with illus.; U. Bohnen, Das Gesetz der Welt ist die Änderung der Welt. Die rheinische Gruppe progressiver Künstler (1918-1933), Berlin 1976, no. 8 with illus. p. 27
Exhibitions
Cologne January 1920 (Lichthof des Kunstgewerbemuseums); Moscow 1924 (Erste allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung); Frechen 1970/1971 (Kunstverein Frechen e.V.), Hoerle und sein Kreis, cat. no. 154 with illus.; Cologne 1975 (Kölnischer Kunstverein), Vom Dadamax zum Grüngürtel - Köln in den 20er Jahren, n. cat. no., with illus. p. 100/101; Berlin 1975 (Akademie der Künste Berlin/ Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst), Politische Konstruktivisten. Die "Gruppe progressiver Künstler" Köln 1919-1933, with illus.; Cologne 1980 (Kölnischer Kunstverein), Max Ernst in Köln. Die rheinische Kunstszene bis 1922, cat. no. 165 with illus.