Gert Heinrich Wollheim

Gert Heinrich Wollheim Dachgeister 1922 Oil on canvas. 120.5 x 105.5 cm. Framed. Signed, dated and unclearly inscribed 'Wollheim/ 1922 DSDF' lower right in brown. Euler-Schmidt 14 (listed there as missing and created around 1920) We would like to thank Michael Euler-Schmidt, Cologne, for the confirmatory information. Provenance Acquired by previous owner in 1947/1948 in Düsseldorf; thenceforth family property, Rhineland Wollheim’s “Dachgeister” were created during the six-year period he spent in Düsseldorf (1919–1925). In the painting offered here, Wollheim – in keeping with his simmering, anarchical temperament – has two roof spirits celebrate a world that has gone off the rails. The landscape of the roofs stirs memories of a battlefield and the viscous smoke billows downward from the chimney: a world turned on its head. Regarding the First World War, Wollheim would still write reproachfully: “Did you not just see the war, dear citizens, murderous swinishness, a feature that would even make one spit in disgust at an animal and would force a God on earth to be ashamed of his failed work” (Gert Wollheim: Worte von der Kunst, ein Gewächs aus der Lunge, cited in: Gert H. Wollheim. Die wilden Jahre. 1919-1925, exh. cat. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf 1984, p. 38). However, a conciliatory olive branch hovering high up in the sky gives reason to hope for eternal peace, and we already feel we can sense the Heavenly Jerusalem.