August Macke - Kinder mit Ziege im Wald - image-1
August Macke - Kinder mit Ziege im Wald - image-2
August Macke - Kinder mit Ziege im Wald - image-1August Macke - Kinder mit Ziege im Wald - image-2

Lot 28 Dα

August Macke - Kinder mit Ziege im Wald

Auction 1233 - overview Cologne
01.12.2023, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 700.000 € - 800.000 €
Result: 770.000 € (incl. premium)

August Macke

Kinder mit Ziege im Wald
1912

Oil on canvas. 47 x 60.7 cm. Framed. Signed and dated 'Aug. Macke 1912' in pencil lower left. - Relined. Isolated retouching.

This painting from the best period of August Macke’s oeuvre uniquely condenses a figural painting and landscape into an energetic, museum-quality work.
Macke uses repeatedly overlapping shapes, interlocking diagonals and occasional hatching applied in vigorous strokes, to reproduce the shimmering play of light and dense vegetation of a summery forest. Painter and viewer directly and abundantly perceive the innumerable sensory impressions from the reflected light, shadows and constantly shifting coloured surfaces. The central figures, two children playing with their goat, form a pole of calm within this vibrant setting.
The chromatic relationships which integrate the figures into their surroundings and intensify the dynamic effect are remarkable: the blue of their clothing can be found in a somewhat darker tone in the shadows of the tree trunks, but the correlation between the red of the dress and the flickering, reflected light in the wooded background is particularly striking.
This work unites numerous stylistic influences experienced and absorbed by Macke at this time – the isolation of individual elements drawn from early French cubism transitions into the dynamic, staccato-like fragmentation which he encountered in the works of the Italian futurists in 1912. Macke also saw the works of Robert Delaunay at this time, and they left a deep impression on him. With the usage of the coloured forms he creates an abstract network of shapes which give a threedimensional depth to the painting which pulls us into the scene.
The depicted children are Lisbeth and Franz Steinheuer, both of whom lived in the neighbourhood of the Macke family’s home on Bonn’s Bornheimer Straße. The painter dealt with the same theme in a preparatory work in gouache from the same year: it shows the children and the animal in a concentrated view depicted in a two-dimensional and reductive manner (Heiderich 409).
The year after our picture was created, Macke took up its motif once again in the painting “Kinder mit Ziege” (Heiderich 520). In this case, the subject is realised in harmonious, two-dimensional forms that invest the motif with a strong sense of calm and order, and the powerful immediacy that distinguishes our work becomes lost.

Catalogue Raisonné

Heiderich 410

Provenance

Dr. Ferdinand Ziersch, Wuppertal (1957); Galerie Grosshennig, Düsseldorf (1978); private ownership, North Rhine-Westphalia, since 1982

Literature

Jürgen Gustav, August Macke, Kirchdorf 1987, with colour ill. p. 18 f.; Rudolf von Bitter, August Macke, Munich 1993, p. 89 colour ill. 65

Exhibitions

I.a. Dresden 1913 (Galerie Ernst Arnold), August Macke; Frankfurt/Wiesbaden 1920 (Frankfurter Kunstverein/Neues Museum Wiesbaden, Nassauischer Kunstverein), Gedächtnis-Ausstellung August Macke, cat. no. 25; Halle 1921 (Kunstverein); Krefeld/Münster/Magdeburg/Braunschweig 1924/25 (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Museum/Westfälischer Kunstverein/Magdeburg/Gesellschaft der Freunde junger Kunst), August Macke; Meschede 1951 (Landratsamt), Gedächtnisausstellung August Macke, cat. no. 14; Den Haag 1953/54 (Gemeentemuseum), August Macke, cat. no. 15; Amsterdam 1954 (Stedelijk Museum), August Macke, cat. no. 4; Braunschweig 1954 (Kunstverein), August Macke, cat. no. 37; Zurich 1954 (Kunsthaus), August Macke 1887-1914, cat. no. 14; Munich 1962 (Städt. Galerie im Lenbachhaus), August Macke, cat. no. 93; Amsterdam 1964 (Stedelijk Museum), Expressionisme van Gogh tot Picasso, cat. no. 77; Düsseldorf 1978/79 (Galerie Grosshennig), Ausstellungs- und Angebotskatalog deutscher und französischer Kunstwerke des 20. Jahrhunderts, with colour ill. on cover; Recklinghausen 1984 (Städt. Kunsthalle), Wer hat dich, du schöner Wald, cat. no. 92 with ill.; Münster/Bonn/Munich 1986/87 (Westfälisches Landesmuseum/Städtisches Kunstmuseum/Städt. Galerie im Lenbachhaus), August Macke. Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, cat. no. 89 with colour ill. p. 251; Münster/Bonn 2001/02 (Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst u. Kulturgeschichte/Kunstmuseum), August Macke und die frühe Moderne in Europa, cat. no. 93, with colour ill. p. 216