Max Kaus - Regenwolken - image-1

Lot 372 D

Max Kaus - Regenwolken

Auction 1121 - overview Cologne
30.11.2018, 17:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 18.000 € - 22.000 €
Result: 28.520 € (incl. premium)

Max Kaus

Regenwolken
1923

Oil on canvas 71 x 100.5 cm Framed. Signed 'MKaus' [M and K joined] in yellowish colour lower left and on verso largely signed, dated 'MKaus 23' in the same colour on the stretcher and titled 'Regenwolken' in green on the side. - In fine condition; partially slight craqueleur in the pastose strokes of paint.

Stylistically, the early twenties stand for a new painterly brushstroke and a freer, diffuse manner of composition in the work of Max Kaus. In terms of motifs the northern German landscapes and the Baltic Sea, which he explored on journeys and sailing excursions with his companion Gertrud Kant, are among the subjects that shift into the foreground. The landscape painting of his friend Erich Heckel, who supported and assisted him as an artist, may have been particularly influential during these years. Kaus developed the theme of the “Bathers”, nudes along the sea, which would become so important for him. On Hiddensee and on the island Vilm, to the south of Rügen, in the Bay of Greifswald, he created a number of important new paintings, including views depicting solely the coast. The “Regenwolken” presented here - an expansive panorama featuring the low-hanging rain clouds of its title - captures the bay's extended stretch of breakers in charming and linear sweeping curves, reduced formally and summarised into rhythmic shapes. The style is characterised by a new pictorial structure with calm and large contours and saturated as well as nuanced expanses of colour.

Catalogue Raisonné

Schmitt-Wischmann 57

Provenance

Collection Prof. Otto Weber, Berlin; formerly private collection, Switzerland

Literature

Calus Zoege von Manteuffel, Max Kaus in: Max Kaus. Werke und Dokumente, Archiv für Bildende Kunst im Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, exhib. cat. Nuremberg/Berlin/Darmstadt 1991, Nurernberg 1991, cf. p. 50; cf. Magdalena M. Moeller (ed.), Schwingende Landschaft, in: Max Kaus - Erich Heckel. Eine Künstlerfreundschaft, exhib. cat. Brücke-Museum Berlin 2015, p. 106

Exhibitions

Düsseldorf 2006 (Remmert und Barth), Überblick 2006, cat. no. 103 with colour illus.