Lesser Ury - Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang - image-1
Lesser Ury - Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang - image-2
Lesser Ury - Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang - image-1Lesser Ury - Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang - image-2

Lot 55 Dα

Lesser Ury - Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang

Auction 1233 - overview Cologne
01.12.2023, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 40.000 € - 60.000 €

Lesser Ury

Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang
1890s

Oil and opaque white on cardboard. 51.1 x 36.8 cm. Framed under glass. Signed 'L. Ury' lower left in white. - Slight marginal defects, otherwise in very good condition.

Lesser Ury, who was an introverted man by nature and accordingly never joined any of the well-known artists’ groups, sought secluded places and the tranquillity of nature for his landscape paintings: “As a fine-art painter I intend,” he wrote to his friend Hans Olde in 1892, “to make studies in a village or some little nest for maybe 3 months, […] where one can work without disruption. The poorer the village, the better” (cited in: Hermann A. Schlögl, Lesser Ury. Ein Lebensbericht nach Dokumenten und Briefen, in: Lesser Ury, exh. cat. Berlin 1995, p. 26). In keeping with this, he regularly stayed along the lakes and rivers of the countryside around Berlin from the early 1890s, and this is also where he created the “Havellandschaft bei Sonnenuntergang” offered here. This work depicts the Havel river calmly flowing along as well as individual trees of the pine forest: in the light of the setting sun, their silhouettes stand out against the sky in the manner of a theatrical backdrop. Influenced by the black-and-white idiom of graphic art and inspired by contemporary photography, Ury worked exclusively with black oil paint, an opaque white and a broad range of grey tones to produce “Havellandschaft”, one of his rare landscape grisailles. Even without the use of colour, he has created a strikingly atmospheric landscape. Whether or not Ury initially had a concrete natural image before his eyes, this is no mere reproduction; instead, it gives expression to his experience and his understanding of the world by providing the silence of nature with a voice.

Certificate

Photo-certificate and expert report from Sibylle Groß, Berlin, from 11 November 2021. The painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Lesser Ury.

Provenance

Private collection Dr. med. Georg Leiser und Pauline Leiser, Berlin, possibly since 1948; private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia

Literature

G. Kutna, Lesser Ury's Landschaften, in: Ost und West. Illustrierte Monatsschrift für modernes Judentum, 2nd ed., issue 9, Berlin 1902, ill. p. 621-622; Hermann A. Schlögl/Karl Schwarz, Lesser Ury. Zauber des Lichts, in: exhib. cat. Käthe Kollwitz-Museum Berlin 1995, cat. no. 22, p. 94 with ill.; Joachim Seyppel, Lesser Ury. Der Maler der alten City. Leben, Kunst, Wirkung. Eine Monographie, Berlin 1987, p. 198, no. 392; Martin Buber, Lesser Ury, in: Jüdische Künstler, Berlin 1903, p. 66, with ill.

Exhibitions

New York 1951 (Jewish Museum under Auspiece of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America), Lesser Ury (1861-1931). Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings, cat. no. 15