Lot 67 D

Gerhard Marck’s sculpture “Alcina II”, which was created in 1934 in two slightly varied versions, is extremely rare on the art market. While the hair of the first version’s figure is bound together and her dress falls in straight lines, “Alcina II” has her hair open and the skirt of her dress is modelled in detail, including numerous folds. With regard to the figural conception featuring a supporting and a free leg, erect posture and reserved expression, it documents the artist’s engagement with Greek sculpture. This is no coincidence, since Marcks was fascinated with Greek culture throughout his life and had travelled to Greece for the first time in 1928, with the archaeologist Herbert Koch (1880–1960). The impressions he gathered there provided decisive impulses for his figural work for a long time. With its austere style, “Alcina II” also testifies to his influence through the classical Greek approach to the figure.
The artist Trude Jalowetz (1910–1976) served as Marcks’s model for the figure’s head. She was a student in the weaving class at the Burg Giebichenstein school of applied arts, where Marcks worked as deputy director. After she and her husband had to emigrate due to their Jewish ancestry, Marcks visited them in the Dutch town of Putten in 1934. That is probably also where the preparatory model study (Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt), dated 25 February 1934, was created.