2844 - Fritz Klimsch (1870 Frankfurt am Main – 1960 Freiburg)

Fritz Klimsch (1870 Frankfurt am Main – 1960 Freiburg) "Girl with a Turban" ("On the Beach"). Original title Bronze, dark patina, 1955/1956. Monogrammed on the sole of the left foot with "FK" in ligature and marked with the foundry stamp "H NOACK BERLIN." Cat. no. Braun 131. Separate stone base. This bronze is a scaled-down version of the larger, 60-cm-tall stone cast (or artificial stone) sculpture “On the Beach” from 1926. Klimsch exhibited this work that same year as part of a “group exhibition” at the spring exhibition of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, and in 1927 also at the Munich Art Exhibition in the Glaspalast. The earlier title directly reflects the nude figure’s calm, physically composed posture, which is at the same time inwardly liberated by summertime beach life. As he wrote in a 1927 letter to a collector, Klimsch was already considering having bronze casts made at that time. The original of “On the Beach” from 1926 is lost; neither are any other stone cast copies known, nor are any large bronze copies from the 1920s. In his later years, Klimsch decided to rework several of his earlier successful works and to produce them in different sizes. Among these was “On the Beach” in 1955–56, which he reworked as “Girl with a Turban” and which was apparently cast by Noack in Berlin in only a small edition with varying patinas. Approx. 29.5 cm x 27 cm x 25 cm. Base: 5 cm x 20 cm x 20 cm. Lit./Catalog: Hermann Braun: “Fritz Klimsch. Eine Dokumentation,” Cologne 1991, no. 131. Provenance: Acquired in 1988 from Galerie Koch, Hanover; since then in a private collection in northwestern Germany. Dark-patinated bronze, 1955/56. Signed with a monogram; foundry stamp “H NOACK BERLIN.” Separate stone base.