7196 - Kesting, Edmund

Kesting, Edmund Untitled (Abstract Darß Landscape with Crescent Moon) Oil on canvas, mounted on wood and covered with frame strips designed by the artist. Probably around 1961. 40 x 60 cm (frame). Signed “EdKesting” in light green with a brush in the lower left corner of the painting. Kesting intertwines figurative and abstract elements into a composition that extends beyond the picture plane and spreads across the frame. Labyrinthine, seemingly endless networks of lines stand alongside cloud-like dotted structures within the densely packed fields of color; black next to luminous yellow; amorphous forms next to smooth cloud-like formations. The finely balanced contrasts, color harmonies, and textures—in places rendered in relief with impasto—crowd together to form an enchanting fantasy landscape, the image of an inner vision, as if from an alien planet—and yet clearly inspired by the familiar Baltic Sea landscape: “visible not only to the painter, but to anyone willing to see” (Heinz Schönemann, in: Exhibition catalog, Galerie Döbele, Dresden 1992, p. 41). This form of bare, towering trees with short branch stubs is frequently found in Kesting’s paintings of the Darß. The artist spent the summer months there between 1961 and 1965. Provenance: Irene Lehr, Berlin, Auction 35, Oct. 29, 2011, Lot 302 Private collection, Berlin - Please request 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.