- 168
Max Pechstein
Description
- Max Pechstein
- Kastanienbaum (Chestnut Tree)
- signed HMPechstein and dated 1922 (lower left)
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Private Collection, South America (by descent from the above)
Thence by descent to the present owner in 1995
Catalogue Note
Kastanienbaum was completed during the Weimar years immediately following the First World War. During this time, Pechstein travelled around the country and painted extensively. As the artist observed at the time: 'I drown everything in colour, my brain is filled only with paintings, and the idea of what to paint drives me from one place to the other, already at eight in the evening I fall into bed dead tired, and yet I have still got mountains [of work] to deal with, if it were possible I would have to spend three years here without interruption and work like a horse to finish it at some point. [...] Only painting still keeps me going, once it is over, I will certainly collapse, so [one has to] harvest, bring into the barn, as long as still possible' (quoted in Bernhard Fulda & Aya Soika, Max Pechstein: The Rise and Fall of Expressionism, Berlin, 2012, p. 229).