Hermann Max Pechstein

Sale: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 18th November 1964, lot 99
Sale: Sotheby Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, 20th November 1972, lot 31
Private Collection (purchased at the above sale; sale: Christie's, London, 7th October 1999, lot 66)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

The canvas is lined. There appears to be some fine lines of retouching to cover craquelure, most obvously to the trees on the right side of the houses, but possibly more widespread. There is a 3cm. line of retouching to the centre of the upper edge, and a couple of nailhead-sized spots to centre of the work, and a few further spots above the centre of the house. All retouching is visible under UV light. Apart from craquelure to the varnish, this work is in good condition. Colours: The colours are overall deeper and less yellow in the original.
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Painted in 1922, Landschaft mit Getreidefeld in Leba is an important landscape that Pechstein completed in the aftermath of World War I. The beautifully vibrant colouration, contrasting brick reds and bright oranges with lush greens, captures the atmosphere of bucolic harmony with the cottages nestling amongst the wheat field and the bright sunlight illuminating the scene. Pechstein's use of the luminous palette of reds, oranges and greens reflect the latent influence of German Expressionism, a movement in which he was a universally recognized master. The Expressionist idiom still found a loud and clear voice in Pechstein's paintings of the later 1910s and early 1920s.

The present work depicts farmhouses in Leba, an area close to the Baltic Sea shores in northern Germany, which Pechstein discovered in the early 1920s. Due to the partition of Germany after Versailles, Pechstein's favourite landscape of Nidden lay outside the German border, in Lithuania. Therefore he decided to look for new inspiration elsewhere. In his memoirs the artist recollected the rather romantic nature of his quest: 'In April 1921, I went on a quest with the bare essentials in my backpack. According to the map I had located a place in eastern Pomerania between the Leba-lake and the Baltic Sea. I strolled along the Baltic Sea shore in a westward direction. Finally, I decided to set up my quarters in Leba. Although there were different types of people, different types of fishermen, the vast, seemingly never-ending dune landscape somehow resembled Nidden...so I began to work there' (Hermann Max Pechstein, Erinnerungen, Wiesbaden, 1960, pp. 107-108, translated from German).