6 - Hermann Max Pechstein

Hermann Max Pechstein Farren im Wald 1919 Oil on canvas. 100.2 x 80 cm. Framed. Monogrammed and dated 'HMP [joined] 1919' in black lower left. Inscribed 'Farren im Wald' in black verso. - In very fine condition with fresh colours. Minimally rubbed at margins of the canvas. Soika 1919/22 Provenance Galerie Gurlitt, Berlin (-1923); Galerie Wilhelm Grosshennig, Düsseldorf (1969; "Rotes Farnkraut im Herbstwald"); Private collection, Düsseldorf; Math. Lempertz'sche Kunstversteigerung, Cologne, auction 504, 3 June 1969, lot 600; Private collection, Rhineland Exhibitions Düsseldorf 1920 (Städtischer Kunstpalast), Große Kunstausstellung Düsseldorf, cat. no. 1012 (as "Farn im Walde"); Cologne 1921 (Galerie Goyert), H. M. Pechstein und Rudolf Belling, cat. no. 5 (as "Farren"); Frankfurt a.M. 1921 (Kunstsalon Ludwig Schames), H. M. Pechstein, cat. no. 8; Düsseldorf 1969/70 (Galerie Wilhelm Grosshennig), Ausstellung deutscher und französischer Meisterwerke, p. 15, with col. ill. (as "Rotes Farnkraut im Herbstwald") After the end of the First World War, Max Pechstein was able to travel back to his beloved Nida on the Curonian Spit again. Discovered in 1909 as a pristine landscape defined by the rough sea, Pechstein spent his fourth summer in this small fishing village in 1919. As he wrote to the art historian Georg Biermann, “the wild dream has now finally come to an end. It’s summer again. I’m finally completely free and sitting in my beloved Nida again, working and soaking up strength like the moss that flourishes beneath the rain and transforms the forest into a miraculous thing (cited in: M. Moeller, Max Pechstein, München 1997, p. 58). During this intense phase of work, Pechstein created around a hundred landscapes that feature dunes, the sea and forests and give expression to a new sense of mastery. The painting “Farren im Wald” also belongs to this group of landscapes immersed in colour from 1919. His reinvigorated creative power primarily manifests itself in the contrasting colours of red, orange and green, which are complemented by a delicate violet and yellow. The bold colours invest the forest landscape with an immense sense of vitality and immediacy. The broad brushstrokes also add to the intensity of the image. The lines of force of the abundant fern continue along slightly curved paths to the left and right, all the way to the edges of the picture, and they define the dynamism of the composition. The mostly cool and detached Palau landscapes from 1917 have been replaced by luminous colours and powerful forms pulled from the real world.