Lot 222 Dα

Within Lesser Ury's body of work in pastels, his atmospheric depictions of the metropolis, its streets and cafes, are repeatedly particularly enchanting. They are doubtlessly to be counted among those masterpieces of late German impressionism which have become classics. The artist unfolds complete virtuosity in his handling of the medium, especially in his depictions of boulevards dampened by the rain and seen in the evening or at night. Here his art reveals itself in its painterly savouring of contrasts of colour and light.
In this pastel from the second half of the 1920s, Ury establishes the formal contrasts through his characteristic, semi-abstract application of the chalk: a sky featuring high, light-coloured clouds before the dark curtain of the rain and a bold dark green catch our eye, their broad shapes contrasting with the diverse shades of grey in the details. Muted colour is used to descriptively differentiate the finely outlined staffage figures, who take the form of elegant, metropolitan flâneurs; the illuminated window displays shimmer and their yellow light is reflected in the standing water along the edges of the wet street. Motif and painterly style complement one another in an ideal manner. In Lesser Ury's work the vistas of Berlin's tree-lined streets take on an entirely distinctive fascination, a modern as well as elegant air possessing an unmistakably French flair. According to Sybille Groß Lesser Ury very probably found the motive depicted here in Berlin's "Neuer Westen" (New West), in the district around Kurfürstendamm, at that time, well before World War II, a newly established place of entertainment with luxury shops, restaurants, dancing halls and cinemas.