Lot 14 D α

Outstanding sculpture from Schlemmer’s Bauhaus period

In 1923 Oskar Schlemmer created his “Abstrakte Figur”, also known as “Freiplastik G” – one of the most “interesting figures of the 1920s” (Karin von Maur). More than any other work by Schlemmer, it fulfils the demand that the artist himself placed on free-standing sculptures: “Sculpture is 3-dimensional. It is to be grasped not in a single moment but, instead, in a sequential succession of vantage points and perspectives. Because the sculpture is not exhausted through a single viewpoint, its beholders are compelled to move, and it is only this circling and the sum of impressions that leads to a grasp of the sculpture” (cited in Karin von Maur, Oskar Schlemmer. München 1979, p. 384). Inspired through his occupation with the “Figurales Kabinett”, Schlemmer has achieved a fascinating free-standing sculpture by combining human limbs with exotically unfamiliar bodily forms.
“Abstrakte Figur/Freiplastik G” does in fact offer a series of different perspectives through its form and the contrary movements of its composition. While the head is divided up into a face and helmet like a core and shell, the powerful torso forms the active centre of the figure. It displays rounded, vertical elements as well as a strong diagonal leading towards the waist. The projecting left shoulder runs along a contrary path that extends around the figure all the way to its back. The vertical elements are intercepted by the horizontal of the long base, whose stability anchors the hovering quality of the body on the metal rod.
The sculpture displays spherical, cylindrical and diagonal forms based on the elementary forms of the circle, triangle and square. The interplay of concave and convex orientation, of light and shadow, fills the figure with a tremendous dynamism reminiscent of Schlemmer’s costume designs for the famous “Triadisches Ballett". In essence, the “Abstrakte Figur/Freiplastik G” unites a strong element of movement with a subtly nuanced sculptural quality. Hardly any other artist of Oskar Schlemmer’s generation realised the idea of a genuine sculpture as effectively as Schlemmer has done in his “Abstrakte Figur”.
Numerous preliminary drawings and a design sketch in watercolours demonstrate that Schlemmer worked on the “Abstrakte Figur” over an extended period of time and became intensely occupied with its execution. Only after clarifying a number of preliminary compositional concepts did he arrive at the present, final form. The original version carried out in plaster in 1923, which was professionally restored by the staff of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in 1977, is now coming up for auction for the first time. In 1961 Schlemmer’s wife Tut had eleven, very slightly smaller casts in nickel bronze made from this original version at the Noack foundry in Berlin.

With his “Abstrakte Figur/Freiplastik G” of 1923, Oskar Schlemmer created the most important sculpture of the Bauhaus.

This lot will be auctioned as an attached object according to § 825.2 Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung, ZPO).