Lot 74 Dα

In this pastel from the 1920s, Lesser Ury has captured a view of Berlin’s Landwehrkanal with an inimitably delicate subtlety of nuance. The foliage and areas of grass present themselves in bright, springtime shades of green; the softly blurred contours illustrate the luxuriance of the vegetation. Subtle reflections of the blue sky and the clouds shimmering in tones of white, grey and pale pink are to be found on the surface of the water. This work strikingly displays Ury’s masterful use of light and his adept creation of a sense of depth – areas in which he was surely unrivalled. The slender silhouette of a lone woman walking at the left edge of the picture and the emergence of a few architectural details bring the idyllic scenery to life and quietly locate it within an urban environment. In contrast to Lesser Ury’s Berlin street scenes, in which cars, trams and passers-by illustrate the bustling everyday life of the metropolis, the image here is centred around the peaceful beauty of nature, causing us to largely forget that it is also a view from the middle of the capital.
The vantage point selected by the artist can be precisely located. From the Herkulesufer, our gaze follows the Landwehrkanal in the direction of the Potsdamer Brücke. The little footbridge to the right in the picture is what was then the Lützow-Brücke: under this name, it had connected the residential areas on either side of the Landwehrkanal since 1884. This was a favourite motif of Ury’s: he would already create his first painting with a view of the bridge shortly after returning to Berlin in 1887 and, over the following decades, he used it repeatedly in his work.