Two female half nudes

Two female half nudes
Otto Mueller , around 1919
Glue paint on burlap
87.4 x 70.6 cm
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Two female half nudes is an expressionist painting by Otto Mueller from around 1919.

description

Otto Mueller painted the half-nudes with glue on burlap . This coarse, permeable painting surface is part of the composition of the picture. It is not completely covered by the paint, which creates the effect as if the paint is being absorbed by the substrate. The picture, signed O. M. in the upper right corner, shows two young, black-haired women with full lips and narrow, almost triangular faces, who look at the viewer with narrow black eyes. The right is seen from the front, the left slightly from the right. The outlines of the bodies, which are shown up to just above the navel, are indicated with black brushstrokes, and the interior drawing is black. The figures, especially the one on the right, which has a slightly lighter skin color than the one on the left, are enhanced with a bluish white. The background is kept in yellow and gray tones, with the heads of the figures framed by broad yellow brushstrokes.

history

After his return from the First World War, Otto Mueller turned back to his old group of motifs. However, two female half-nudes stand out from Mueller's other works, as his pictures usually show full-length naked people. The picture was in Wroclaw until 1935 . There Mueller worked at the academy from 1919; the painting was made by the Wroclaw-based collector Dr. Ismar Littmann bought. Littmann was personally acquainted with Mueller and bought a total of two paintings and 128 graphics by the artist.

The lawyer Littmann took his own life in December 1934 because of the reprisals of the National Socialists . His widow then gave part of the collection, which comprised around 6,000 works, to the 188th auction of the Berlin auction house Max Perl , which took place on February 26 and 27, 1935. She wanted to finance the emigration for her children and herself. The two female half-nudes were also among the pictures that were to be auctioned for this purpose; However, they were confiscated by the Gestapo two days before the auction as "cultural Bolshevik depiction [s] of a pornographic character". The painting was shown in 1937 in the Munich exhibition “ Degenerate Art ”.

In 1939 the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne tried to auction two female half-nudes for 850 Swiss francs, but was unsuccessful. The picture returned to Germany, went to the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt for $ 100 or $ 150 , who later sold it to Josef Haubrich . The Haubrich Collection was donated to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum (today Museum Ludwig ) in Cologne in 1946 . The picture, which was supposedly bought from the artist by the Nationalgalerie Berlin , remained there until it was returned to Littmann's daughter, Ruth Haller, in 1999. The Museum Ludwig was able to repurchase it in 2000 Research center for provenance research.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Publications - Patrimonia NR. 191 (2001): Otto Mueller "Two female half-nudes". Kulturstiftung der Länder, archived from the original on November 13, 2013 ; Retrieved November 13, 2013 . 
2. ^ Jewish Museum Berlin, Robbery and Restitution
3. ↑ Sabine Rudolph: Restitution of works of art from Jewish property , De Gruyter 2007, ISBN 978-3-89949-436-5 , p. 5 f.
4. ↑ So Jan Philipp Reemtsma : The irrevocable ignorance of the majority. Six speeches on literature and art , Beck 2005, ISBN 978-3406537240 , p. 49
5. ^ Provenance Research: Museum Ludwig, Cologne (Ludwig Museum, Cologne). In: lootedart.com. Retrieved November 13, 2013 . 
6. ^ Jan Philipp Reemtsma: The irrevocable non-decision knowledge of the majority: Six speeches about literature and art , Beck 2005, ISBN 978-3406537240 , p. 49