MATARÉ, EWALD
1887 Aachen–1965 Büderich

Title: Large kneeling cow.
Date: 1925 (draft).
Technique: Bronze, dark brown patinated.
Measurement: 21.5 x 45 x 18.5 cm.
Notation: Artist's signet On the right side at the back: Mataré (ligated).


This bronze is an earyl cast made during the artist's lifetime. Only a few copies were made. We are grateful to Mr. Guido de Werd, Cologne, for the friendly, scientific support



Provenance:
- - Dr. Arnold Maria Weghmann, Kleve (aquired directly from the artist in the 1940s, family-owned ever since)


Literature:
- Schilling, Sabine Maja/Werd, Guido de: Ewald Mataré - The Sculptural Work, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. II, Cologne 2024, Cat. No. 32a, ill.

- Schilling, Sabine Maja: Ewald Mataré - The Sculptural Work, Catalogue Raisonné, Cologne 1987, Cat. No. 27a



-One of Mataré’s very early cows: a cast from 1926

-Cast during the artist’s lifetime with a beautiful patina

-Acquired by the artist in 1940 and in the family’s possession ever since

-Mataré’s impressive formal innovations make him one of the most important sculptors and art teachers of the postwar period



Beautiful to Stroke: The Idea of “Cow”

She is a wholly self-contained form. Stoically, she has rested for one hundred years and watches. One of Ewald Mataré’s very early cows, this cast dates from 1926. The front legs are folded beneath the body in such a way that the upper forelegs project bluntly before the chest. The hind legs beneath the voluminous body are merely suggested in contour. The back slopes gently downward. The curved horns extend into space. Together with the soft yet characteristic head, they define the very notion of “cow” at first glance.

Mataré’s art resides in renunciation. No details distract from the creature’s inner essence. In an era dominated by expressive gesture, he distilled the characteristic to the point of the emblematic. In Platonic terms, this is the materialized “Idea of Cow”—an object of meditation.

Mataré’s bronzes are invariably sculptures derived from models carved in often exceptionally hard precious woods. With the chisel, he liberated the precisely envisioned form contained within the block, then refined it through many laborious stages into the smooth surface that delights both eye and hand.

In 1928, Ewald Mataré published the essay A Word on Sculpture (Ein Wort über die Plastik) in the journal Kunst der Zeit. There he wrote:

“[…] just as painting is perceived through the eye, sculpture should be perceptible through the hand, as something tangible […] even a blind person should be able to enjoy sculpture.”

(Ewald Mataré, quoted in Sabine Maja Schilling, Ewald Mataré: Das plastische Werk, vol. 1, Cologne 1924, pp. 14f.)

To illustrate this programmatic text, Mataré selected precisely the Large Kneeling Cow of 1926 (fig. 1).



From the Imagined Space of Painting to the Real Space of Sculpture

Ewald Mataré took a long time to discover his own artistic language. Necessity opened up a new path: the son of a prosperous family began studying painting at the Academy of Arts in Berlin in 1907. This initially seemed to be his calling. In 1914, he briefly became a student of Lovis Corinth, but completed his studies as a master pupil of the history painter Arthur Kampf.

Mataré’s military service lasted only a short time due to health reasons. His success as a painter remained limited, not least because of the broader political and economic circumstances. Artistically, he felt he had not yet achieved formal clarity, and he suffered genuine hardship—shortages of food as well as artistic materials.

The artist frequently escaped bustling Berlin for the North German coast. In 1920, while on Wangerooge, he conceived the idea of carving driftwood planks for woodcuts. Printing ink and paper were easier to obtain than oil paint and canvas. Two years later, on Spiekeroog, there were only pieces of wood suited to sculptural carving. It was here that Mataré discovered himself as a sculptor.

Although human figures initially formed part of his sculptural vocabulary, he soon turned toward animals—and especially the cow—as a formal challenge. In sculpture, he had found his true medium. His strikingly original formal language soon attracted increasing attention, collectors, and public acquisitions.

Mataré became professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, albeit only briefly, before the National Socialists removed him from office and classified him among the so-called “degenerate” artists. After the war, reinstated as professor in Düsseldorf, Ewald Mataré emerged as one of the most important artistic figures and teachers of the young Federal Republic. His influential credo of fidelity to material directly and indirectly shaped generations of artists, craftspeople, and designers.



The Previous Owner: Dr. Weghmann

In 1934, a war memorial designed by Ewald Mataré was inaugurated in Kleve: The Dead Warrior (Der tote Krieger). It met with harsh criticism from the Nazi authorities and the press under their control, culminating in the monument’s removal in 1938.

Only a young legal trainee at the district court, Dr. Arnold Maria Weghmann, attempted to foster understanding for “modern sculpture” in an article later published in three local newspapers. In this context, Dr. Weghmann sought contact with Ewald Mataré. Among the works he acquired from the artist was the present Large Kneeling Cow, which has remained in his family ever since.

According to Dr. Weghmann’s account, this is precisely the example illustrated by Mataré in his 1928 essay A Word on Sculpture. The very first Large Kneeling Cow, serving as the model for the eight known lifetime bronze casts, had been carved by Ewald Mataré in 1925 from exceptionally hard amaranth wood (fig. 2).

A photograph of this cow was used by László Moholy-Nagy in his book From Material to Architecture (Von Material zu Architektur) to illustrate the chapter “Volume” (fig. 3). In 1928, this wooden cow was acquired by the Berlin National Gallery, only to be confiscated and sold by the National Socialists in 1937. Today, this Large Kneeling Cow belongs to the collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern.

Surely, one is no longer permitted to stroke her today.

Alexandra Bresges-Jung



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#Ewald Mataré #Expressionism #Cubism #Germany #Modern Art #1920s #Sculptures.







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