Gerhard Marcks - Torso Betula - image-1 Gerhard Marcks - Torso Betula - image-2

Lot 77 D

Gerhard Marcks - Torso Betula

Auction 1256 - overview Cologne
29.11.2024, 18:00 - Modern and Contemporary Art - Evening Sale
Estimate: 30.000 € - 40.000 €
Result: 42.840 € (incl. premium)
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Gerhard Marcks

Torso Betula
1938

Bronze. Height 83.8 cm. Artist's mark on plinth, numbered and with foundry mark "GUSS BARTH RINTELN" on side of plinth. One of few casts with Roman numerals. - Golden-brown patina.

The artist's studio in Nikolassee had already been destroyed by the war when his artist friend Heinrich Graf Luckner was on hand to rescue the remaining studio inventory - including the torso of "Betula" - as Gerhard Marcks had fled from the National Socialists to Ahrenshoop. The young soldier Henri Nannen helped with the rescue, for which Marcks gave him the sculpture "Schwimmerin II" from the same year of creation, 1938, as a gift for the opening of his museum in Emden.

Due to these particular circumstances, this version of “Betula” is the only torso in Gerhard Marcks' oeuvre.

Catalogue Raisonné

Rudloff 355 a; Gerhard Marcks' works diary plaster/bronze no. 198

Provenance

Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf (label on underside); private property, North Rhine-Westphalia

Literature

Catalogue Collection Bremen 1971, Gerhard-Marcks-Foundation, cat. no. 28 with ill. 18