Lovis Corinth

Heinrich Thannhauser, Munich (probably acquired from the artist)
Oskar Federer, Ostrava (probably acquired from the above in the late 1920s or early 1930s)
Seized by the Nazis in 1939
Galerie Vytvarného Umenì, Ostrava (by November 1943)
Restituted to the heirs of Oskar Federer in 2007 

Berlin, Galerie Wiltschek, 1925, no. 11, illustrated in the catalogue

Charlotte Berend-Corinth, Lovis Corinth. Die Gemälde, Werkverzeichnis, Munich, 1992, no. 901, illustrated p. 828 (with incorrect medium)

The cradled panel is sound. There is a thin 8cm. line of retouching running across the lower right corner and a thin 5cm. line of retouching to the extreme right running up from the lower corner, both visible under UV light. Apart from two nailhead-sized holes in the support to the upper edge, possibly due to an earlier mounting, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall the tones are warmer and deeper in the original.
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PROPERTY FROM THE OSKAR FEDERER COLLECTION

Oskar Federer (1884-1968) was acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent collectors of French Impressionism and nineteenth and twentieth century German, Austrian and Czech art in pre-war Czechoslovakia, and beyond. On 10th January 1932 the Prager Tageblatt wrote: '[Federer] takes an active part in all contemporary issues, and has a reputation for being an ardent patron and supporter of domestic art. His collection of paintings is one of the finest modern art collections in Prague. He is a member of the Modern Gallery curatorial board'. 

Federer was the General Director of the largest steel manufacturer in Czechoslovakia, the Vitkovice Mining and Metallurgic Company in the 1930s and was forced to flee Czechoslovakia in 1939 with the help of the British Foreign Office. He finally settled with his family in Montreal, Canada, in August 1940. Federer succeeded in taking with him ten works from his collection, including oil-paintings by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Monet and  Renoir. The Nazis confiscated the remaining collection which comprised of over 100 pieces including paintings, drawings, watercolours and sculptures from his company villa in Vitkovice, his villa in Prague and his home in Kropacova Vrutice.

Approximately twenty-two works ended up in the Gallery of Fine Art of the Municipal Museum of Ostrava by November 1943, when they were given by the regime on loan to this newly-established institution. With the defeat of the Nazis in 1945 and the Communists' rise to power in 1948, the Czech government decided to keep the works in Ostrava and in another public gallery in Pardubice. In 2007, after a 10 year litigation, a group of  twenty-two works were restituted to the heirs of Oskar Federer who continue his passion and the family tradition of collecting contemporary art.

Sotheby's is honoured to present nine works from this group in the series of Impressionist & Modern Art auctions on 3rd and 4th February 2009 and in our forthcoming Russian Art and 19th Century European Paintings auctions to be held in London later in the year.

LOT 121

Painted in 1923, at the height of his career, Blumen im Bronzekübel exhibits the richly expressive brushwork and vigorous, painterly style of Corinth's mature œuvre. Writing about these late works, Georg Bussmann commented: 'He rejoices in painting wet upon wet, in painting colour upon colour, in smudging them and then stopping suddenly and simply allowing them to glow; there is a quality of rage in making all this into a picture, into forcing a vision to emerge' (G. Bussmann, 'Lovis Corinth: The Late Works', in German Art in the Twentieth Century. Painting and Sculpture 1905-1985 (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1985, p. 436).

The paintings that Corinth completed during the last six years of his life are among his most stylistically daring. They demonstrate a higher level of abstraction than many of his earlier canvases and are explicitly modern interpretations of the natural world. The rich heavy impasto brushstrokes combined with a strong, deep palette is a characteristic of the artist's flower paintings. The bucket or vase positioned centrally in the painting is a motif that appears repeatedly in his still-lifes whilst the red, purple and yellow tones, contrasted with the white of the tablecloth and of some flower buds, create a sense of dynamic equilibrium within the composition.

When Corinth first exhibited in Berlin in the early 1920s, his new pictures met with resounding critical approval; he was hailed as a genius, and his recent work was called 'astonishing'. Many of these works were selected as the official German entries for the 1922 Venice Biennale and were considered representatives of the best avant-garde painting in Germany. Corinth's artistic success came at a time of increasing introspection that followed the war years. The artist was able to express his inward emotions through his painting, and the results of this effort were ultimately enriching for his art.