167 - Olaf Hauke

Olaf Hauke 1935 Breslau – 2024 Hanau – “Cardboard Study for the Portrait of Costume Designer Margit Koppendorfer” – (1978) mixed media on stiff cardboard. 98 x 68 cm. 122 x 90 cm (dimensions including frame). Titled, dated, and signed in the upper right: Cardboard Study for a Portrait of Costume Designer Margit Koppendorfer / January 13, 1978 / Olaf Hauke. Fully visible, mounted in a display frame under glass. - Provenance: Formerly the W.P.E. Eggers Collection. Olaf Hauke studied graphic design and book arts in Leipzig and later worked as a painter and graphic artist in Hanau. This work is a cardboard study—that is, a large-format sketch—for a portrait of costume designer Margit Koppendorfer. Koppendorfer worked at the Schauspiel Frankfurt and the Schauspielhaus Hamburg and is today one of the most sought-after costume designers in the German-speaking world, with works for the Burgtheater in Vienna, among others. Hauke depicts her in a frontal view, with a striking bob haircut and expressive gestures. The finely drawn ornaments on her scarf and jacket stand out delicately against the understated, sand-colored background and lend the portrait an elegant, almost theatrical presence, befitting a woman of the theater.