- 171
Wilhelm Lehmbruck
Description
- Wilhelm Lehmbruck
- BÜSTE DER KNIENDEN (BUST OF THE KNEELING WOMAN)
- inscribed W LEHMBRUCK
- cast stone
- height: 50 cm., 19 3/4 in.
Provenance
Galerie Flechtheim, Berlin
Baron Rech, Bonn (possibly acquired from the above circa 1920)
Dr. C. Richartz, Amsterdam
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner by 1951
Exhibited
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Lehmbruck, 1956, no. 14, illustrated in colour on the cover of the catalogue
Literature
Dietrich Schubert, Wilhelm Lehmbruck. Catalogue raisonné der Skulpturen 1898-1919, Worms, 2001, pp. 242-254, no. 61, stone, bronze and terracotta editions catalogued
Catalogue Note
After studying at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, Lehmbruck moved to Paris in 1910, where he lived at 105, rue de Vagiraud. There he frequented the Café du Dôme, where he met sculptors such as Brancusi, Archipenko and Modigliani and was also introduced to the process of stonecasting, a technique already practised by Brancusi at the time.
Executed circa 1911, Büste der Knienden is a section of Lehmbruck’s monumental sculpture Die Kniende (D. Schubert, see: op.cit. 2001, no. 59), created in Paris the same year. In it we see the attenuation and elongation that was to become Lehmbruck’s defining sculptural characteristic. The sensitive use of the features of the stone cast creates a deep unity of the contents and the moulding. In the present work Lehmbruck continues a smooth sexual tension with poetic melancholy, capturing his unique approach to the female body.