Konrad Klapheck

Galerie von Bartha, Basel
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle; Tübingen, Kunsthalle Tübingen; Munich, Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Konrad Klapheck: Retrospektive 1955 - 1985, 1985-86, p. 171, no. 75, illustrated in colour
Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast, Klapheck: Paintings and Drawings, 2013

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is slightly warmer. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection reveals some fine and unobtrusive tension cracks running intermittently along the extreme outer edges. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

In its glorious yet surreal appearance, Konrad Klapheck's Die Forderungen der Moral is an idiosyncratic expression of the alluring practice of one of Germany's most elusive post-war artists. At once referring to the technical inventions that had interested the artist from a young age, yet painstakingly hand-painted, the green typewriter presents the viewer with a puzzling and intriguing work that eludes categorisation.

After painting his first typewriter for a still-life assignment at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1955, Klapheck devoted most of his career to the depiction of a wide range of everyday objects, but would return to the typewriter throughout his career. His originally literal presentation of modern machinery quickly captured the imagination of the art world, which was dominated by the expressive aesthetic of tachisme. André Breton and the surrealists in Paris were particularly intrigued by the artist's pairing of inanimate objects with suggestively psychological titles – effectively treating the machines as allegories for human beings. Explaining his anthropomorphic understanding of the machine, Klapheck remarked: “to me the typewriter, this instrument on which the most important decisions of our lives are dictated, is from the male gender. It represents the father, the politician, the artist" (Konrad Klapheck quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Konrad Klapheck, 1974, p. 14).

Aside from his Surrealist affiliations, Klapheck's paintings also have overt references to Pop Art in their seemingly uncomplicated presentation of consumer products, and he indeed exhibited his work at the Castelli Gallery in 1962 with Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, amongst others. Moreover, his technically accomplished and realistic style has been compared to the hyper-realist paintings of some of his contemporaries. The artist's extremely precise working methods, in which each painting was preceded by a full-size study on paper (here offered as Lot 205) and his highly rigorous selection process, make the present work a rare and potent example of Klapheck's inventive practice.