Barthel Gilles
Mutter und Kind
1930
Oil tempera on panel. 41 x 31.8 cm. Framed. Signed 'B. Gilles' in white lower right. Signed and dated '1930 B. Gilles' and signed, titled and inscribed 'Mutter und Kind 400 M Gilles' verso. - In very good condition.
“Sustained by a poetic atmosphere, this ‘mother and child’ image is fit snugly into its frame. Gilles tenderly articulates familial relationships by means of the turned head, the touch of the skin, the left hand laid protectively round the child and the blissful gaze. The unconditional precision of the individual’s depiction simultaneously prevents an excessively abstract representation that would once again, as in the case of Georg Schrimpf, cite the motif of the Madonna” (Adam C. Oellers, in: Oellers/Euler-Schmidt, op. cit., p. 60).
In 1931 Barthel Gilles was awarded the Albrecht Dürer Prize of the City of Nuremberg for this painting, among others.
Catalogue Raisonné
Kuhlen 41
Provenance
Acquired direct from the artist; private collection, Rhineland Palatinate
Literature
Adam C. Oellers/Michael Euler-Schmidt, Barthel Gilles 1891-1977. Leben und Werk, Recklinghausen 1987, p. 32f., p. 60, with full page illus. pl. 26
Exhibitions
Aachen 1982 (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum/Museumsverein), Barthel Gilles, ein Maler der Neuen Sachlichkeit, cat. no. 18 with full page illus. p. 40