Lot 190 Dα

As Katharina Erling has emphasised, Hölzel's window - once believed to be lost - for Dr Willi Fulda's library room at the Lauta factory in the Lusatian town of Lauta is from the important final period of the artist's work, just as the corresponding design also on offer (see lot 191). It is well-known that, at that time, the artist was examining the laws and the effects of colours and forms in light by means of numerous pastels, which actually look like luminous abstract designs for imaginary stained glass windows. His compositions using transparent glass crowned his efforts as an artist. “Because if Hölzel developed an absolute painting entirely out of its own means - in analogy to music - or if, to utilise a different term, he was envisioning a 'musical painting': here his intentions found their purest realisation, here intentions and achievements could become largely congruent” (Wolfgang Venzmer, Adolf Hölzel, op. cit., p. 127). In 1973 Adolf Saile from the Saile workshop in Stuttgart drew the author of the catalogue raisonné's attention to the window in the library room in Lauta, at what was then known as the “Albert Zimmermann” aluminium factory. It was documented only in a black-and-white photo. As K. Erling pointed out, the present work dated to 1926 was - after the early commission of 1918 to design the stained glass in the reception hall of the Bahlsen company in Hanover - “the first stained glass window by Adolf Hölzel carried out in the traditional manner of leaded windows. Scholars have previously remained unaware that this window initiated Hölzel's renewed occupation with the medium of coloured glass in the mid-1920s. […] Shortly after the window's completion, it was exhibited in Stuttgart.” (cited from Kat. Moderne Kunst, Lempertz Auktion 21 Nov. 1992, pp. 46/47).
Contemporary critics proved veritably enchanted with the effect of the crystalline work, with its rhythmic, quasi-metaphysical chromatic landscape. Hölzel weighted the pyramidal composition through the distribution of colour as well as an integrative merging of thematic-figurative and cosmic-landscape elements. The Stuttgarter Tagblatt of 26 October 1926 commented: “The exhibition room of the stained glass workshop of V. Saile, Neckarstraße, is currently showing a stained glass window by Hölzel. It is magnificent. Previously, Hölzel had created a sensation with his large stained glass windows for Hanover, whose splendid colouristic effect was generated entirely on the basis of independent principles of composition. Now he is utilising his frequently new and refined experiences with the life and effect of colour within a smaller framework. […] As true children of light, these colours absorb every ray of the sun and intensify them to a fairy-tale splendour. In gradations of warm and cold green, full red and cool pink, darkly smouldering tones and piercing, bright yellow. However, the blue panes in larger oval forms distributed with the surest economy provide the whole with its defining note that beautifully and calmly brings together this glittering and sparkling, gleaming and symphonic murmuring. It is masterful.” (Lempertz op. cit., p. 47).