413 - Kurt Scheele

Kurt Scheele 1905 Frankfurt am Main – 1944 Smolensk – Sailboat on the Shore – Charcoal and pastel chalk on paper. 45.5 x 61 cm (mat cutout), 78 x 91 cm (dimensions with frame). Signed and dated lower right: Scheele (19)40. Estate stamp on the back of the frame. Included there with catalog number: Z 258. Mat. Framed under glass. The painter and graphic artist studied from 1922 under Albert Windisch at the Technical School for the Book Trade and under the commercial artist Rudolf Koch in Offenbach. Beginning in 1924, he took drawing lessons at the Frankfurt Art School under the Expressionist Franz Karl Delavilla. His membership in the artists’ group “Der Keil” began when he moved to Berlin in 1927. In the years that followed, he undertook study trips throughout Europe. In 1927–28, he took painting classes with Martin Bloch and Anton Kerschbaumer. It was also during this time that he discovered woodcut printing, a technique that would come to dominate his body of work. In the years that followed, he moved away from Expressionism in his painting and turned to abstract art. As a result, his works were classified as “degenerate” during the Nazi era, and he was banned from exhibiting his work beginning in 1939.