Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock - image-1

Lot 251 Nα

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock

Auction 1110 - overview Cologne
01.06.2018, 17:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 60.000 € - 80.000 €

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock
1909

Woodcut on card-like wove paper 24,9 x 33,8 cm (38 x 50,1 cm) Framed under glass. Signed. Published in the annual portfolio no. V of the artist group Brücke in 1910. Gercken states an original edition of approx. 70 proofs. - Nevertheless very rare. - Sheet edges somewhat trimmed. Edges with minimal browning resp. foxing.

In 1906 the painters of the artists association “Brücke” decided to also accept interested friends of art as passive members. For an annual contribution of 12 marks, they received membership cards designed by the artists, annual reports and - as an annual gift to members - a portfolio with three to four prints. The first annual portfolios, published from 1906, each contained sheets by different artists. In 1909 an agreement was reached that, in future, each group of works was to be created by a single artist; one of the other members would design an appropriate cover each time.
For the 5th annual portfolio, from the year 1910, Kirchner provided the prints and, in selecting them, he chose three very dissimilar sheets: the polychrome woodcut “Mit Schilf werfende Badende” (Gercken 375, Dube H. 160), the woodcut “Tänzerin mit erhobenem Rock” (Gercken 376, Dube H. 141) and the etching “Drei Badende an den Moritzburger Teichen” (Gercken 377, Dube R. 69). Erich Heckel created the woodcut “Kniender Akt” (Dube H. 181) for the cover. Besides a very small number of copies outside the portfolio, an edition of around 70 impressions was planned for each print, corresponding to the number of active and passive “Brücke” members.
A fine impression of “Tänzerin mit gehobenem Rock” can be offered at this auction: it represents Kirchner's mastery of the woodcut technique in an exemplary fashion. In spite of the quite large editions of the annual portfolios, this particular print is exceptionally rare. The sheet records a lascivious scene from the nightlife of the big city and is thus thematically distinct from the other two prints, which depict idyllic bathing scenes among the Moritzburg Ponds. The composition is defined by diagonals. The dancer's head and upper body lean to the front right, towards the viewer, the bare arms are bent away from the body, the swinging white skirt which she is raising with both hands dissolves into a diagonal, black-and-white plane. Other dancers are suggested in the background as light fragments. With strong chiaroscuro contrasts and the rough, reductive means of the woodcut, Kirchner achieves a snapshot exhibiting an extraordinary dynamism and expressivity.

Catalogue Raisonné

Gercken 376 II B; Dube H. 141 III

Provenance

Hanna Bekker vom Rath, Frankfurt; Private collection, Switzerland

Literature

Eberhard W. Kornfeld, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Nachzeichnung seines Lebens, Bern 1979, p. 25 ff. with illus. p. 31