Bidspirit auction | Bartold Asendorpf

Bartold Asendorpf - Bartold Asendorpf, Dune Landscape with Path. 1913.. Bartold Asendorpf 1888 Stettin – 1946 Buchenwald Oil on canvas. Monogrammed and dated ”BA 13.” lower right. Remains of a label on the left edge. Framed in a partly gold-colored, concave molding. Probably listed in: Michael Sauer: Bartold Asendorpf – Ein vergessener Wegbereiter der Moderne. Schweinfurt 1993. Cat. No. 7. For further dune landscape paintings by Bartold Asendorpf from 1913, cf.: ”Dune without Sea”, Sauer 1993, Cat. No. 9, Fig. p. 39. ”Dune with Tower”, Sauer 1993, Cat. No. 8 and probably depicted in: Michael Hebecker: Beinahe Vergessen (Calendar 2006), Weimar 2005. Subject and dimensions match Sauer 1993, but the monogram is lower left. For Asendorpf's biographer Michael Sauer, it is clear that the three known dune landscapes formed a cycle due to their sparse monochrome and their partially identical format (cf. Sauer 1993, p. 38). Since most of Bartold Asendorpf's works from before 1925 are lost, the present painting is an art historically important testimony to that phase of work between 1910–15, which Sauer characterizes as a ”synthesis of expressivity and romantic detachment from the world” (Sauer 1993, p. 38). Newly stretched onto the probably original stretcher frame and relined with a second canvas. Canvas slightly warped due to the thick paint layer. Distinct craquelure cracks, isolated peaks and edges of the craquelure slightly raised. Tiny retouches at craquelure edges in the lower image area and at an inconspicuous, linear, vertical scratch in the paint layer lower left. Frame slightly rubbed. Dimensions: 76 x 90.5 cm, Frame: 94 x 106.5 cm. Bartold Asendorpf 1888 Stettin – 1946 Buchenwald Studied at the Weimar School of Art and the Berlin Art Academy. In Weimar, a student of Olde, Hagen, Thedy, Ludwig von Hofmann, and Fritz Mackensen. Worked at the Kassel Art Academy. 1909 moved to Berlin. There, participated in the first exhibition of the ”Neue Secession” and in 1915 in Herwarth Walden's ”Sturm” gallery. Further exhibitions at the Griffelkunstvereinigung Hamburg and the Donndorf Museum. After military service in 1917, moved/fled to Bad Berka in Thuringia and worked there as a painter and book illustrator. There, he belonged to the ”Thüringer Gruppe” with Alfred Ahner, Walter Determann, Werner Fechner, Kurt Günther, Werner Rocco, Alexander von Szpinger, and Oskar von Zaborsky-Walstätten. 1943 exhibition ban, shortly thereafter imprisonment and 1946 death in Buchenwald concentration camp.