Hermann Max Pechstein

Private Collection, Berlin (a gift from the artist and sold: Sotheby's, London, December 8, 1997, lot 36)

Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Aya Soika, Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde, Munich, 2011, vol. II, no. 1919/13, illustrated in color p. 133

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Pechstein sought to flee the frenzy of city life, and immerse himself in a more peaceful, ‘primitive’ environment where he could paint en plein air. The present work was painted in May 1919 in Ratzeburg, a picturesque town in Schleswig-Holstein that is surrounded by four lakes.  It was here and in the fishing village of Nidden on the Baltic coast that the artist painted some of his most color-infused landscapes.

Having returned home to Berlin after the First World War, in a letter to his friend Georg Biermann from 6th August 1919 the artist described his emotional turmoil: "… I can return to Berlin, in order to throw myself ravenously into the long desired sea of colors. From time to time I still have dreams waking me at night, my nerves refusing to get used to the tranquillity of bourgeois existence. […] Finally I am completely free...working and bursting with energy" (quoted in Max Pechstein im Brücke-Museum (exhibition catalogue), Brücke-Museum, Berlin, 2001, p. 45, translated from German). With its bright coloration, coupled with a sense of beauty and tranquillity of this  landscape, the present work is a remarkable example of this outburst of energy that characterised Pechstein’s work in the interwar period.