82.125 Woman with large hat (Frau mit grossem Hut)

1910

Watercolor on envelope, 8 x 6 1/2" (20.5 x 16.5 cm)

Signed, lr: H M P 1910

Provenance: Lempertz Auction, Cologone, Nr. 455, June 1959

One of the more fascinating aspects of the Expressionists’ artistic production is the frequency with which they include illustrations and elaborate caricatures in their letters to each other and to their dealers and friends. This small painting, done on the back of an envelope, is a good example of Pechstein’s penchant for such studies. Whether it was meant as a general study or as a specific commentary on someone Pechstein had seen or knew cannot be determined. Pechstein’s son, who maintained the Pechstein-Archiv in Hamburg, wrote in a letter to the author that this particular piece was sold at auction at Cologne’s Kunsthaus Lempertz in 1959; until recently, the Archive was aware of its existence but had no reproduction of it. Pohl’s purchase of the piece at this auction makes it one of the last Expressionist works she bought.

Because of his forced return from the South Seas, Pechstein was unable to bring back any of the art he created while there. His immediate entry into the infantry once he returned to Germany further removed him from the idyllic images that had so impressed him in the Pacific. After the war, however, disillusioned and shaken by the experiences of the past three years, he began to work on themes inspired by his memories of Palau and the native art he discovered there.

This portfolio of nine woodcuts was published in 1919 as the 13^th work of the dealer Fritz Gurlitt’s press–another example of the practice of publishing print portfolios to appeal to the new group of elite collectors who became Expressionism’s biggest patrons after World War I. The plates here refer not only to Pechstein’s continued exploration of “primitive” theme; they also represent his more reflective interpretation of the stylistic concerns that preoccupied him before the war.

Pechstein’s primary compositional concentration in every plate is the contrast of black and white, the aspect of the woodcut that allowed the emotive effects so important to all of the Expressionists. The direction of these contrasts, however, varies from plate to plate: the image of a seated girl, entitled Krankes Mädchen (Sick Girl), for example, is similar in theme and form to the woodcuts done of the Brücke’s model Fränzi, although the line of the nose certainly alludes to tribal masks. Here Pechstein delineates the darkened form of the girl’s upraised arm from the dark background by emphasizing the white area surrounding the arm. His head of a boy, on the other hand–perhaps a portrait of his son Frank–is much more painterly, with a reversed demarcation between the areas of black and white. The face itself is created out of black, with white lines to create the illusion of modeling. The head of Pechstein’s friend and patron Dr. Freundlich is completed in a style more directly in keeping with the “raw” techniques of the early Brücke works, in which the artist manipulates the surface of the wood itself to enhance the dramatic angular contrasts between the positive and negative areas.

The remaining plates are most directly inspired by Palau themes and where produced specifically for the publication of the portfolio. Here the conscious attempt at a “primitive” style is most evident, with an obvious emphasis on stark contrast of black and white forms and an angular yet rhythmic interrelation between the pictorial elements. Pechstein’s style is more simplified, more decorative than it had been before the war. As Pechstein himself wrote about his experience of life on Palau, “Here is the unity of man and nature; work, sleep, everything is one, it is itself.” It was this fundamental sense of unity that Pechstein hoped to express in these prints.

In 1909, Pechstein first visited the dunes and beaches in the Baltic coast, in the area known as the “Kurische Nehrung,” or the Courland Peninsula, now part of Lithuania. The location became for him–as similar Baltic scenery would become for Schmidt-Ruttluff and Lyonel Feininger–the ideal artistic landscape. He returned nearly every summer to villages in this area and in Pomerania until 1938, when political realities made such trips impossible. After the war, he never saw his beloved coast again.

Just as he and other Brüke artists had attempted to do on the Morizburg lakes near Dresden, Pechstein sought, through his depictions of nudes on the beach, an expression of pure primitive nature removed from the complications and hypocrisies of modern life. In Pechstein’s case, the arrangement of several nudes in one composition produced the most desirable effect; as Neuerburgh states, “with the depiction of many nudes in natural proximity to each other, a new type of communal feeling was celebrated.” Here as in other paintings of the time, Pechstein concentrated on an architectonic structuring of the two figures in relation to elements of the landscape. In this case, the one nude caries a yoke of water pails, the yoke serving as a strong diagonal line across the picture. Evident is Pechstein’s assured mastery of the spontaneous brushstroke that allowed him to capture the essence of the figures with a minimum of line.