211 - FRIEDRICH SCHRÖDER SONNENSTERN

FRIEDRICH SCHRÖDER SONNENSTERN (1892 Kaukehmen (East Prussia) – 1982 Berlin) The Artists’ Bone Tribute, 1958 Wax crayon on “Schoellershammer” 4G thick (dry stamp). 73 x 51 cm. Framed under glass. Signed in lead and with an additional artist’s monogram in the lower right, dated, and titled on the left. On the reverse: signature and artist’s monogram, dated, and inscribed by the artist: “Certified original work, one-of-a-kind” Schröder Sonnenstern, the self-taught artist and former patient of psychiatric institutions, creates here a kind of counter-altarpiece: a veneration of saints that is not one. The grinning skeleton in the center—half jester, half relic—is surrounded not by incense and devotion, but by vials, money bags, and garish grimaces—a form of veneration that immediately turns into commerce, intoxication, and the grotesque. Thus, the painting reads as a bitter satire on the art world itself: The dead artist is honored only once he has become bones, a fetish, a commodity, surrounded by figures who oscillate between patrons, critics, and profiteers, bringing him gifts that are bribes rather than tributes.