SCHMIDT-ROTTLUFF, KARL
1884 Rottluff–1976 Berlin

Title: "Gehöft an der Bucht".
Date: 1963.
Technique: Watercolour and India ink on laid paper.
Measurement: 50 x 70 cm.
Notation: Signed lower right: SRottluff. With the work number lower left: 6343. Inscribed, titled and dated verso lower centre: 65/79 Gehöft an der Bucht 63.
Frame: Craftsman's frame.


The work is documented in the archives of the Karl and Emy Schmidt-Rottluff Foundation at the Brücke Museum in Berlin



Provenance:
- - Private collection Germany

- Ketterer Kunst, Munich, 468th auction, 9.6.2018, lot 738

- Private collection North Germany



- Expressionism in its most mature, late form

- A masterful interplay of luminous watercolour and striking India ink

- A timeless visual concept with a powerful emotional impact



The watercolour ‘Farmstead by the Bay’ by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, dated 1963, is a characteristic example of the artist’s late work, in which his Expressionist approach to painting is evident in a reduced yet condensed form. Depicted is an enclosed farmstead in the foreground, behind which a tranquil expanse of water and a gently sloping coastline stretch out – a motif that reflects Schmidt-Rottluff’s long-standing engagement with North German landscapes.

The composition is clearly structured horizontally: the foreground, middle ground and background are distinctly separated from one another, with spatial depth taking a back seat in favour of a two-dimensional pictorial organisation. The forms are greatly simplified and outlined by striking ink lines, whilst the transparent watercolours create a lively, partly glazed effect. Particularly striking is the heightened, non-naturalistic colour scheme with intense reds, greens and yellows, which serves less to render reality than to enhance subjective expression. In contrast to the often more dynamic and high-contrast early works, however, the visual language here appears calmer and more focused. The depiction is reduced more strongly to the essentials and thereby acquires an almost symbolic clarity.

‘Gehöft an der Bucht’ is not a spontaneous record of nature, but a deliberately reduced, formally considered pictorial construction in which Schmidt-Rottluff combines his Expressionist roots with a late, almost meditative clarity. The work demonstrates how, even decades after the founding of Die Brücke, the artist remains true to his central concern: the transformation of nature into an autonomous, subjectively shaped pictorial reality.



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#Karl Schmidt-Rottluff #Expressionism #Die Brücke #Berlin Secession #Germany #Modern Art #1960s #Landscape #Works on paper #Modern Art.







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