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Impressionist & Modern Art
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3214* LOVIS CORINTH(Tapiau 1858 - 1925 Zandvoort)
Tulpen, Flieder und Kalla. 1915.
Oil on canvas.
Signed upper left: Lovis Corinth, and dated
upper right: 1915.
62 x 50 cm.
We thank Dr. Bettina Best for her accade-
mic research support.
Provenance:
- Galerie Thannhauser, Berlin.
- Graphisches Kabinett, Bremen.
- Private collection, Austria.
Exhibition:
- Wuppertal 1999, Lovis Corinth. Von der
Heydt Museum, no. 34 (with ill. p.131).
Literature:
- Berend-Corinth, Charlotte: Die Gemälde
von Lovis Corinth. Werkkatalog. Mit einer
Einführung von Konrad Röthel, Munich
1958, no. 647, p. 137 (with ill. p. 640).
- Berend-Corinth, Charlotte/Hernad,
Béatrice, Lovis Corinth: Die Gemälde,
Werkverzeichnis. Mit einer Einführung
von Hans-Jürgen Imiela, Munich 1992,
no. 647, p. 137 (with ill. p. 670).
Stand-alone still lifes barely feature in the
early work of Corinth. From the end of the
first decade of the 20th century, howe-
ver, he dedicated himself more and more
often to this subject, and subsequently
still lifes assumed an important and central
role in the artist’s oeuvre.
This may be a convergence of several
reasons: – Corinth‘s activity as teacher
at a painting school for women; his wife
Charlotte as instigator, who knew how to
tempt him out of his depressive moods
with flowers; and not least the physical li-
mitations resulting from his stroke in 1911.
Thereupon he began to engage intensely
with nature, flowers and landscape, which
came to dominate towards the end of his
work.
“To capture and express nature in all its
forms, building and destroying, as does
nature itself, and so to become a part of
her – that is Corinth’s credo, like that of
Goethe (...). Corinth’s painting is the equi-
valent of the creativity of nature. Painting
as natura naturans, the formula, probably
first employed by Ludwig Justi, which en-
compasses the confusing double aspect
of Corinth’s painting: on the one hand, the
painterly materialisation of all things in na-
ture and at the same time a painterly hymn
to creation and life, and, on the other hand,
the transformation of the whole of nature
into painting and thereby the de-materia-
lisation and spiritualisation of all concrete
things, their elevation to that autonomy
and unreality of pure painting, which Lovis
Corinth formulated as the highest goal.”
(Peter Klaus Schuster: “Malerei als Passion.
Corinth in Berlin”, Exh. Cat. Munich, Berlin,
1996, pp. 54. f.)
The present still life of flowers was created
by Lovis Corinth at the age of 57, at the
height of his career. In this year, 1915, he
had been re-elected as president of the
Berlin Secession and so organised the
Secession exhibition in the new exhibition
hall at the Kurfürstendamm. He supplied
the exhibition with four works, including
two still lifes, which were created in Klop-
stock Strasse Berlin, directly before and
after our still life of flowers.
Within the interplay of colours, the two
Callas lilies at the top and a white flower
below on the jug form the brightest points
of light in the painting. Many further areas of
white highlighting create a sense not only of
a positive bright light, but suggest a certain
quality in the flowers.
This is a painting on the threshold between
bearing witness to the object and auto-
matic painting, flowing between light and
dark, flowering and fading, with the greatest
intensity of colour and cadence, in the most
extreme delicacy in the substance of the
flowers – but also the solidity of the bellied
vase, as well as the angular book.
Even if Corinth’s paintings are known for
their dual aspect of fullness of life and
closeness to death, it is the former which
dominates in the still lifes of flowers with
lilacs, calla and tulips. This work has an
especially powerful effect, with this new ex-
pressive style of short, pulsing brush strokes
and glowing colours. The artistic yearning
for freedom is strongly emphasised here in
Corinth’s style, and the artist’s will to live is
apparent.
CHF 220 000 / 280 000
(€ 203 700 / 259 260)