Hermann Max Pechstein

Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Cologne
Private Collection, Cologne (by 1957)
Sale: Ketterer Kunst, Munich, 24th May 1977, lot 1405
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Potsdam, Galerie Ferdinand Möller, 1925
Cologne, Kölner Messe, Neue deutsche Kunst, 1932, no. 153
Berlin, Haus am Waldsee, Deutsche Stilleben, 1955, no. 75, illustrated in the catalogue
Cologne, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts in Kölner Privatbesitz, 1957, no. 96
Unna, Schloss Cappenberg, Max Pechstein, 1989, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Reutlingen, Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus & Zwickau, Städtisches Museum, Max Pechstein, Das ferne Paradies, Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphiken, 1996, no. 17, illustrated in the catalogue
Monaco, Grimaldi Forum Monaco, Arts of Africa: 7000 Years of African Art, no. 15, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Schleswig, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum (on loan from 1989-2006)

Heinz Spielmann, 'Maler und Zeichner des 20. Jahrhunderts', in Jahrbuch des Schleswig-Holsteinischen Landesmuseums Schloss Gottorf, Neue Folge, 1988-89, vol. II, illustrated p. 183
Magdalena M. Moeller, Max Pechstein, Sein malerisches Werk, Munich, 1996, illustrated in colour pl. 105

Stilleben mit exotischen Plastiken, painted in 1918, captures a wonderful memory of Max Pechstein’s travels to the Palau Islands in the South Sea in 1914. Just like Paul Gauguin and Emil Nolde, Pechstein was intrigued by the foreign and the exotic. Unforeseeable for Pechstein, his trip was interrupted by the beginning of the First World War, and the artist and his wife had to return to Germany in a most adventurous way. Most of the works the painter executed on the islands were lost on his return journey and it was only the years after the war when Pechstein finally found time again to capture, at least from memory, his impressions of the Palau Islands. Interestingly, the artist painted the still life on the reverse of a portrait of his brother Hugo, depicted as a sailor. It seems as if the artist tried to establish a connection between his brother, who was sailing the world, and the artist’s fond memories of the foreign islands.

Fig.1, verso of the present work