The Ketterer auction house in Munich is scoring with many highlights at this year’s spring auction. In addition to highlights of Expressionism, the auction house is also offering many works of Pop Art at its 70th anniversary auction. Among the highlights is a painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, whose whereabouts were unknown for a long time. A key work by Alexej von Jawlensky will also be on offer.
The top lot of the 70th auction at Ketterer Kunst in Munich is undoubtedly the work “Spanish Dancer” from 1909 by the later Blue Rider co-founder Alexej von Jawlensky. The sitter is Jawlensky’s lover Helene Nesnakomoff, who is also the mother of his son Andreas. He had already been living with her and Marianne von Werefkin in a ménage-à-trois for several years when he created the portrait of Helene. Wearing a red dress and holding a colorful fan, she stands with her eyes closed and her head bowed against a blue background. One is immediately reminded of Jawlensky’s famous portrait of the dancer Alexander Sacharoff. It was painted during a summer retreat with Marianne von Werefkin, Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky, at which Helene Nesnakomoff was also present. Jawlensky developed his expressionist color painting during this time, inspired by his trips to France where he saw works by Matisse, Gauguin, van Gogh, Cézanne and Picasso. This development was also to become groundbreaking for the Blue Rider. The reverse of the painting has a happy surprise in store. A sketch of a Murnau landscape can be seen there, which may have been created by Jawlensky en plein air. A very similar depiction of the Blue Country landscape can be seen today in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus. The work, which was part of the important Josef Gottschalk Collection, is confidently valued at 7-12 million euros, but also in line with the market.
For eighty years, a family of collectors in Baden-Württemberg enjoyed the painting “Tanz im Varieté (Steptanz)” by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. The work, which measures 120 by 145 centimetres and is therefore unusually large for Kirchner, was created in 1911 and was unknown to the experts in color. There was only one old black and white photograph in Donald E. Gordon’s 1968 catalog raisonné, showing a couple dancing. She is light-skinned and he is dark-skinned, dancing the then popular cakewalk, a dance whose roots go back to the slave era. In 1944, it came into the possession of the current collector’s family. The acquisition of a work by a degenerate artist in 1944 was fraught with difficulties. In order to protect the large-format work from the bombs of the Second World War and the National Socialist authorities, it was hidden on a farm. When French troops captured the village in 1945 and forcibly opened the crate containing the painting, the decorative frame was damaged. But not only that, the dancing couple are shot and stabbed with a bayonet. The only consolation is that the soldiers leave the damaged work behind. After the war, it was expertly restored so that the damage was only visible on the back. The work, which will be offered at the Evening Sale on June 7, is estimated at 2-3 million euros.
Pop art is represented particularly impressively by James Rosenquist’s 244 x 535 cm work. It shows a naked female torso flanked by a cucumber and a strawberry cake. Rosenquist created this work in 1966 as part of the “Playmate as Fine Art” campaign launched by the men’s magazine Playboy. What can initially be understood as a sexual allusion is put into perspective by a statement made by the artist. He said of the work that he had depicted a pregnant Playmate, complete with pregnancy cravings. According to the auction house, the work is not necessarily to be seen as a criticism of Playboy’s image of women, but it does break up stereotypical viewing habits. Ketterer is offering the work by one of the most important representatives of Pop Art for 1-1.5 million euros. It also announced that the work is the second largest painting ever called on the auction market.
The auctions will take place on June 7 and 8 in Munich.
The works can be viewed on the following dates: May 22 to 30 in Berlin and from June 1 to 7 in Munich.
Photos: Ketterer Art
