August Macke

Estate of the artist

Thence by descent to the present owner

Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, August Macke, 1962, no. 98

Bonn, Bundeskanzleramt, August Macke, 1981, no. 13

Bonn, Kunstmuseum (on loan from 1985 until 2015)

Utsunomiya, City Museum of Art & Fukuyama, City Museum of Art, August Macke and the Rhenish Expressionists, 1999-2000

Mülheim an der Ruhr, Kunstmuseum & Hannover, Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte, August Macke: Sehnsucht nach dem verlorenen Paradies, 2014

Bonn, Kunstmuseum & Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, August Macke und Franz Marc: Eine Künstlerfreundschaft, 2014-15, no. 54, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Gustav Vriesen, August Macke, Stuttgart, 1957, no. 304, illustrated p. 324

Bonn Express, 14th October 1986, illustrated in a photograph

Kunstmuseum Bonn (ed.), August Macke und die Rheinischen Expressionisten im Kunstmuseum Bonn, Die Sammlung, 1991, p. 190

Ursula Heiderich, August Macke, Gemälde, Werkverzeichnis, Ostfildern, 2008, no. 372, illustrated p. 415 

The canvas is unlined and the edges have been strip-lined. There are some spots and areas of retouching at the right and left framing edges and throughout the composition, visible under ultra-violet light. Apart from some stable craquelure in the white and pale pigments, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although stronger and brighter in the original. The upper section of the background has a light blue tonality, and not white as in the catalogue illustration.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

Painted in 1912, a year after the founding of the Blaue Reiter movement, Akt liegend exemplifies a new development in Macke's painting, when the artist moved away from the nearly abstract, geometrically inspired compositions and adopted a new softness and free-flowing style. Colour became the single most important element of his painting. The artist himself proclaimed: 'The most important thing for me is the direct observation of nature in its light-filled existence [...]. What I most cherish is the observation of the movement of colours. Only in this have I found the laws of those simultaneous and complementary colour contrasts that nourish the actual rhythm of my vision. In this I find the actual essence, an essence which is not born out of an a priori system or theory' (quoted in G. Vriesen, op. cit., p. 120, translated from German). The present composition demonstrates the artist's fascination with juxtapositions of complementing colour fields, with the woman’s body delineated in strong black contours.

Working alongside his fellow German painters from Die Brücke and Blaue Reiter groups, Macke’s art reflects a common interest in the subject of the female nude (fig. 2). Barry Herbert discussed this theme in Macke’s art: ‘Macke’s work was a constant reaffirmation of his unaffected delight in this earthly paradise of which he found himself to be a part, and in his paintings he recorded its small, apparently insignificant, moments of pleasure with a penetrating and tender eye for the underlying currents of feeling that made them memorable… In them it is as if all worldly cares have been temporarily laid aside, self-consciousness has been forgotten, and these men and women once again experience something like their former state of innocence. […] The passing moment becomes fixed in time’ (B. Herbert, German Expressionism, Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, pp. 148-149).

Akt liegend also reflects different influences that played a key role in the development of Macke’s style. The use of bright, radiant tones and their application in wide, spontaneous brush strokes show Macke’s debt to the Fauve painters. Macke was one of the first members of Der Blaue Reiter to recognise the importance of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art, and to adapt the colour-theories of the French avant-garde artists to his own style. He first visited Paris in 1907, but it was not until 1909 that he saw the works of the Fauve artists, whose bold use of vibrant colours had a strong impact on him. As suggested by Ernst-Gerhard Güse, Henri Matisse (fig. 3) and Macke shared a similar vision of the basic meaning of art. Matisse famously noted: 'It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist' (H. Matisse quoted in Ernst-Gerhard Güse (ed.), August Macke, Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, Munich, 1986, p. 35, translated from German).

The year 1912, when the present work was executed, marked an increasing recognition of the importance of Macke’s work: he had several group exhibitions with the other Blaue Reiter artists, as well as his first one-man show, held at the Galerie Thannhauser in Munich, followed by another solo exhibition at the Jena Kunstverein, where he was successful in selling a number of exhibited works. These accomplishments certainly fuelled the artist’s creative energy, as Volker Adolphs described: ‘Macke’s art was a direct response to the world he saw, an art of the eye that sought to reproduce the intensity of life in an image, not by seeing it from a distance, but through a process of seeing close-up that was carried by feeling. Only in this way could the picture itself come to life’ (V. Adolphs in August Macke und Franz Marc: Eine Künstlerfreundschaft (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 136).

Akt liegend remained in the artist’s possession at the time of his premature death in 1914, at the age of twenty-seven, and has remained in his family to the present day. For the last thirty years the painting was placed on a long-term loan at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn (fig. 1), the city where Macke spent most of his creative life.