1010 - Eberhard Hückstädt, Der Hahnenreiter, mixed media on paper with certificate, 2001

Eberhard Hückstädt, Der Hahnenreiter, mixed media on paper with certificate, 2001 (b. 1936 Potsdam), mixed media on paper, mounted on a support sheet, dated „22 III 2001“ and signed lower left, inscribed verso in another hand, catalogue raisonné number 4245. A large white cockerel with a red comb and red legs strides to the right; on its back sits a rider in a red-brown doublet, his dark hat trimmed with a white feather. Behind the group the tail feathers of the cockerel fan out with red accents against a dark blue ground. Across the lower edge of the sheet run the lines „Der Hanrey werde ich genandt“ and „Allen untreun Weibern wohlbekandt“ in old script. With a certificate of the Galerie Hohmann, Walsrode, dated 16 October 2001. Good condition. Image 34.5 x 23 cm (HxW), mount, behind glass, framed, frame slightly bumped, overall size 62.5 x 52.5 cm (HxW) Eberhard Hückstädt first trained as a decorative painter, studied from 1956 to 1959 at the school of applied arts in Heiligendamm and then until 1964 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden under Heinz Lohmar and Rudolf Bergander. He worked freelance in Dresden and in Schwedt on the Oder, was regarded as one of the most important portrait painters of the GDR and took part in the sixth to eighth Art Exhibitions of the GDR in Dresden; in 1984 he moved to Hanover. His works are held by the Galerie Neue Meister and the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden, the Kunstarchiv Beeskow and the Brandenburg State Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt on the Oder, among others. In older German usage a „Hahnrei“ was a deceived husband – a mocking image current in the literature and pictorial art of the early modern period.