7109 - Höch, Hannah

Höch, Hannah Mountain Landscape Oil on canvas. 1934/35. 65.8 x 81.5 cm. Monogrammed “H.H.” in the lower right (scratched into the paint); on the reverse of the frame, Höch later dated it “1934–35” in black felt-tip pen. Hannah Höch is today regarded as one of the most versatile and influential German female artists of the 20th century. From her numerous travels, she brought back a wide variety of impressions and inspirations, as well as painterly memories. This is one reason why her comprehensive body of work defies any rigid stylistic categorization. Höch continually moved between figuration and abstraction, allowing the two to merge or incorporating material elements, and created paintings, drawings, and collages. This landscape depiction could be a view of Schluchsee in the Black Forest. In 1973, Höch noted in her diary that she had shown her doctor, Dr. Klesse—who owned a vacation home in the Black Forest—a painting bearing the lake’s name. However, Höch’s notes do not provide clear evidence that this painting is the one in question. If Höch was not mistaken in her later dating of the work to 1934–35, the painting was created during a period that was extremely difficult for her, both politically and in terms of her health. A thyroid condition forced her to undergo major surgery and a long recovery period, first in the Hörselgebirge mountains in Thuringia and then during her convalescence in the Dolomites, where she met her future husband, Kurt Heinz Matthies. The painting may have been created while she was traveling, during one of these stays, or perhaps as late as 1939 on a trip she took with Matthies. It depicts a hilly mountain landscape with a wide river—or the foothills of a lake shore—in the foreground and trees arranged in strict rows in the middle ground behind it. Like many works from the years following the Nazi seizure of power, Höch’s landscape depiction is comparatively classical and, above all, apolitical. Yet the significance of the painting lies in the powerful, symbolically charged sun, which bathes everything in a hopeful, pink light with all its chromatic refractions and nuances, which pours across the sky in a fan-like arrangement of wedge-shaped rays and lends the painting a melancholic charm. We thank Dr. Ralf Burmeister of the Berlinische Galerie for his helpful comments dated October 6, 2026. Provenance: Formerly the collection of Dr. Maria Magdalena Klesse, Heiligensee (physician and neighbor of Hannah Höch) In the family’s possession ever since - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.