Lot 177 Dα

For a long time, Marta Hegemann’s work was scarcely acknowledged at all, and for many years – when it was not completely forgotten – her artistic contribution in connection with the “Cologne Progressives” was viewed solely in the context of her husband Anton Räderscheidt.
Within the whole of her diverse body of work, Hegemann’s watercolours of the 1920s form a particularly exceptional group of works. Sometimes reminiscent of the landscape spaces of “Pittura metafisica”, they usually represent coolly constructed compositions of space. In these works, Hegemann often utilises a light-filled and pastel-coloured palette. The effect of these images is more clear than delicate, and they only superficially embody Heinrich Hoerle’s supposed characterisation of them as “cream cakes” (see Marta Hegemann. Leben und Werk, exh. cat. Stadtmuseum, Köln 1990, p. 24). In fact, Hegemann’s works are far removed from established clichés and actually rigorously undermine them.
The watercolour here conveys the emancipatory spirit of Marta Hegemann’s work in a striking manner. Here a female figure confronts the viewer in a stern pose among fragmentary architectural components and enigmatic objects. The arrangement of pictorial elements opens up extremely diverse realms of association; primarily, however, it seems to present for discussion the multifarious identities between mannequin, figurine and the “new woman” which are projected on to the central female figure.