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Premium MILLON
105
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Otto WOLS (Berlin 1913 - Paris 1951)
Rare materials
Watercol…
See original version (French)
105
-
Otto WOLS (Berlin 1913 - Paris 1951)
Rare materials
Watercol…
See original version (French)
Estimate €15,000 - €20,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Otto WOLS (Berlin 1913 - Paris 1951)
Rare materials
Watercolour
25.7 x 21.5 cm
Signed lower right Wols
Bears on the back the handwritten inscriptions 17 photo n° 248 1939 (dans un camp) 25,7 x 21,5 Materiaux Rares, n° 33 Grety Wols and the stamps Paris 326 Douane centrale et Succession Otto Wols 2006
Provenance: Sale Deburaux Aponem & SVV Sophie Renard, 15 June 2011, n°137
Acquired by the current owner at this sale
A certificate from Dr Ewald Rathke will be given to the buyer.
"The work of Wols is immense. Not necessarily in terms of the number of works he has produced, but above all in terms of the avenues he has explored and the media he has used to achieve his ends, which have given rise to a diversity of daring whose originality in the aesthetic sense of the word has yet to be fully analysed by art history".
in Otto sale, 15 June 2011, Paris Drouot-Richelieu, Supplement, preface, p. 6.
Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, better known as Wols, is an emblematic German artist of the first half of the twentieth century. Although we know him primarily as a painter, he began his training as a violinist in the early 1920s. In 1932, he attended the Bauhaus in Berlin and, on the recommendation of Moholy-Nagy, went to Paris, where he tried his hand at photography.
He left for Barcelona in 1933 and returned to Paris in 1936. The following year, the artist adopted the pseudonym Wols so as not to be recognised as German. But at the outbreak of the Second World War, Wols was locked up in various French camps because of his German citizenship. He spent 14 months in the South of France, notably in the Camp de Milles. This internment marked a prolific period for the artist.
Our watercolour, Les matériaux rares (Rare Materials), is one of the works the painter produced during 1939, and particularly during his confinement. This watercolour is typical of Wols' early work. Although abstract, it is very well constructed compared to his later work. It also has a slightly more objective character, accompanied by the light, diffuse colours characteristic of his general work.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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