845 - Walter Cleff, Goldene Zeit, spring landscape with two women and child, Dusseldorf

Walter Cleff, Goldene Zeit, spring landscape with two women and child, Dusseldorf Oil/canvas, probably 1920s, signed 'W. Cleff' lower left. Inscribed 'Goldene Zeit' and 'Walter Cleff Ddf' on the stretcher on the reverse, as well as a date that is difficult to read. Bright spring landscape composed of short dabs of colour set densely side by side in blue, green, yellow and violet. Above a flowering meadow stand slender, tall trees with brightly broken foliage, behind them a watercourse tinged violet runs through the picture. Two women are sitting in the meadow, next to them a child in light-colored clothing. Age-appropriate good condition, partial craquelure and impressions in the canvas. Image 35 x 27.5 cm (HxW). Framed, frame bumped, frame width 2 cm. Eugen Walter Cleff (1870 Barmen – 1939 Buederich) worked in the applied arts until his thirtieth year and then studied at the Staedel Art Institute in Frankfurt am Main under Bernhard Mannfeld and Wilhelm Amandus Beer. By way of Aachen, Frankfurt and Bremen he came to Dusseldorf, where he belonged to the art society 'Gilde' and to the association of Dusseldorf artists for mutual support. He is counted among the artists of the Dusseldorf school of painting and worked chiefly as an etcher, but also painted landscapes in the late impressionist hand shown here. Works of the same manner, such as the 'Lichtung' dated 1926, show the same view through slender tall trees.