Lot 4 D

“The sometimes boldly colourful 'Figurenmauern' (beg. 1942) are fundamentally walls, not mythology, but in Baumeister's hands during these years everything became a fanciful figure from the realm of the mothers or a realisation of supranatural forces. His anti-rationalism causes the most improbable elements to seem most important to him […]” (Will Grohmann, Willi Baumeister, Leben und Werk, Cologne 1963, p. 104).

Willi Baumeister's important contribution to European modern art has been recognised many times. His deep interest in a dialogue spanning history and the present as well as his continuous occupation with the hidden forces of nature and the lost images of past cultures touch on thematic areas that also seem demonstrably relevant in our time and from today's perspective. The archaic masonry and stone walls of the ancient cultures of South and Central America may have provided the inspiration for Baumeister's impressive walls of figures. Between symbol-like forms, Baumeister's walls are populated by primordial figures, spirit-like beings containing an unmistakably ghostly or - as Grohmann writes - anti-rational element.

Our “Figurenmauer” materialises before the eyes of its viewers as if it were emerging from a fog, although it conveys a very open and not uncheerful aspect in its emphatic colourfulness. And our painting was in fact created during a period that marked a new beginning. After the end of World War II and the temporary prohibition from painting, Baumeister - who was denounced under the Nazi regime - was appointed to a professorship at the Stuttgart Academy of Art in March 1946; his important book “Das Unbekannte in der Kunst” was published shortly thereafter.