Hans Purrmann - Sitzender Akt - image-1

Lot 197 D

Hans Purrmann - Sitzender Akt

Auction 1162 - overview Cologne
08.12.2020, 18:00 - Evening Sale - Modern and Contemporary Art
Estimate: 70.000 € - 80.000 €
Result: 62.500 € (incl. premium)

Hans Purrmann

Sitzender Akt
1926

Oil on canvas 75.5 x 56.5 cm Framed. Signed 'Purrmann' lower right. Verso inscribed 'Rom Via Vittoria' in ballpoint pen on the stretcher and with exhibition labels. - In fine condition.

Hans Purrmann spent the winter months of 1923/1924 and 1925/1926 in Rome, where he rented a flat on the side of Monte Pincio. In addition to several views of the city, he primarily devoted his attention to the subject of the female nude during this period. A number of slightly varied versions featuring the same model, whose name is not known to us, posing on a pink armchair are preserved today. In our painting, Purrmann has taken up this nude composition developed over the years and arrived at a work of outstanding quality. While it was initially assumed that the painting was created in 1930, Felix Billeter now dates it to 1926.
The model is sitting in Purrmann's preferred pose: with her arms raised and crossed behind her head, she is seated on a pink armchair placed on a red carpet in front of a luminous yellow background. The blue ceramic vase on the right has been incorporated into the composition, and the artist has placed it on a table covered with a red-and-yellow cloth. The masterfully applied colours, the contrasting and concerted effect of the yellow, orange and red, blue and green shape and unite the elements surrounding the figure into a vibrant interior. This effect is heightened through the ornamental decorations of the armchair, rug, wall and tablecloth. A rush of colours and forms reveals itself to the viewer - not least reminiscent of Purrmann's friend and teacher Henri Matisse.

Catalogue Raisonné

Billeter 1926/22

Provenance

Heidi Vollmoeller, Zurich; 684. Math. Lempertz'sche Kunstversteigerung, Moderne Kunst, 21 November 1992, Lot 341; Collection BfG-Bank AG, Frankfurt am Main; Collection SEB AG, Frankfurt am Main; Private collection, Westphalia

Exhibitions

Aargau 1966 (Kunsthaus), Hans Purrmann, cat no. 40 (exhibition label verso); Mainz 1980 (Rheinland-Pfälzisches Landesmuseum), Hans Purrmann zum 100jährigen Geburtstag (exhibition label verso); Berlin 1982 (Akademie der Künste der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik), Hans Purrmannn, Malerie, Graphik, Zeichnungen - Plastik, cat. no. 53