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Lot Essay
Konrad Klapheck's paintings occupy a mysterious and unique territory--they are pictures of machines, yet are imbued with personality... and indeed sensuality. Painted in 1964, only nine years after the epiphany that had led to Klapheck's discovery of this rich seam of subject matter, Die Mäitresse shows the taps and appended shower from a bath, yet isolates them, presenting them devoid of context as though they were in fact a figure in a landscape. This supposedly simple subject has been transformed in Klapheck's vision: the looping tube adds a sweeping, curving sinuous quality to the picture, while the metallic cylinders invoke the fetishism of the modern machine age. The white lever in the central element is positively Priapic, an erect diagonal that cuts, both in its shape and its colour, a dynamic diagonal swathe through the picture surface. There is an anthropomorphic quality to Die Mäitresse, which appears to resemble a face with its eyes and nose, and also, more pertinently, a body, with the taps serving as substitutes for breasts.
The epiphany that struck Klapheck in 1955 occurred while he was painting a typewriter. He explained that he was trying to do this in the most extreme, accurate, non-gestural manner possible, initially
hoping to create a witty artistic riposte to the Tachisme that held such sway in the European avant-garde during his time as an art student; certainly, the legacy of this anti-Tachisme is evident in the incredible precision with which Die Mäitresse has been painted, with its Léger-like gleam of machinery. However, during the course of his exercise, Klapheck realised that he was becoming increasingly seduced by the intricate forms of the typewriter, which became, in his distorted likeness, a form of self-portrait and a vehicle for self-revelation. From that time onwards, Klapheck was able to view the domestic machinery that forms such a backdrop to our everyday lives from a new perspective, seeing shoehorns, typewriters, taps and bicycles as sources of wonder and as vehicles for expression. In the case of the humble tap, it was elevated through its connections to cleaning and to the implied nakedness, privacy and intimacy of the bathroom. It comes as no surprise, looking at the incredible ability to project so much emotional and narrative content on the taps, that Klapheck had for some years been in contact with André Breton and the Surrealists by the time he painted Die Mäitresse, as it shares a Magrittean sense of the ability to reveal mystery and magic in the everyday world. At the same time, it shows a clear affinity to the work of Domenico Gnoli, and indeed an emphatic character that relates to the Pop Art that was developing at the time, for instance in some of the chrome-worshipping paintings of Jim Rosenquist.
In a sense, it has been speculated that Die Mäitresse is a more specific portrait than some of Klapheck's other works. This picture, which has featured in several of the most important exhibitions of Klapheck's work, was discussed at some length in the catalogue for the show dedicated to him held in 1985 at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, which travelled to the Kunsthalle Tübingen and the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich. There, it was related that Klapheck, having initially had an annus mirabilis in 1964 during which, propelled by his inspiration, he created over 20 pictures, then had a crisis, with his eyes being affected by his workload and his meticulous and painstaking manner of painting. His wife Lilo guided him from this period of anxiety, and may well be the 'mistress' of the title.
Another autobiographical dimension to Die Mäitresse discussed in that catalogue was the mysterious androgyny of the tap-figure. With the tap-breasts and sweeping forms, this figure appears female, yet is endowed with its bold white protrusion. In fact, this appears to be a legacy of a belief Klapheck, who had no siblings, developed during his youth: he believed that girls too had the equivalent of male genitalia, and has here presented a super-sized version of it in this picture.
The presence of this tumescent element of domestic plumbing is all the more appropriate as the picture was inspired by a photograph taken of the Spanish painter and artistic titan of the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso. That image, the first of many to be shot by David Douglas Duncan during the productive friendship that sprung up between the artist and the photographer, showed Picasso in the bath with the taps next to him, the tube coiled around them, as in Die Mäitresse. Picasso, who remained a significant and vital presence in the European art world when Klapheck painted Die Mäitresse in 1964, was himself considered by many to be an image of machismo, seducing many women during the course of his lifetime. This adds an extra element of subversive play to Die Mäitresse, which takes as its subject matter and source a sidelined element within the intimate environs of the bathroom of Picasso himself.
The epiphany that struck Klapheck in 1955 occurred while he was painting a typewriter. He explained that he was trying to do this in the most extreme, accurate, non-gestural manner possible, initially
hoping to create a witty artistic riposte to the Tachisme that held such sway in the European avant-garde during his time as an art student; certainly, the legacy of this anti-Tachisme is evident in the incredible precision with which Die Mäitresse has been painted, with its Léger-like gleam of machinery. However, during the course of his exercise, Klapheck realised that he was becoming increasingly seduced by the intricate forms of the typewriter, which became, in his distorted likeness, a form of self-portrait and a vehicle for self-revelation. From that time onwards, Klapheck was able to view the domestic machinery that forms such a backdrop to our everyday lives from a new perspective, seeing shoehorns, typewriters, taps and bicycles as sources of wonder and as vehicles for expression. In the case of the humble tap, it was elevated through its connections to cleaning and to the implied nakedness, privacy and intimacy of the bathroom. It comes as no surprise, looking at the incredible ability to project so much emotional and narrative content on the taps, that Klapheck had for some years been in contact with André Breton and the Surrealists by the time he painted Die Mäitresse, as it shares a Magrittean sense of the ability to reveal mystery and magic in the everyday world. At the same time, it shows a clear affinity to the work of Domenico Gnoli, and indeed an emphatic character that relates to the Pop Art that was developing at the time, for instance in some of the chrome-worshipping paintings of Jim Rosenquist.
In a sense, it has been speculated that Die Mäitresse is a more specific portrait than some of Klapheck's other works. This picture, which has featured in several of the most important exhibitions of Klapheck's work, was discussed at some length in the catalogue for the show dedicated to him held in 1985 at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, which travelled to the Kunsthalle Tübingen and the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich. There, it was related that Klapheck, having initially had an annus mirabilis in 1964 during which, propelled by his inspiration, he created over 20 pictures, then had a crisis, with his eyes being affected by his workload and his meticulous and painstaking manner of painting. His wife Lilo guided him from this period of anxiety, and may well be the 'mistress' of the title.
Another autobiographical dimension to Die Mäitresse discussed in that catalogue was the mysterious androgyny of the tap-figure. With the tap-breasts and sweeping forms, this figure appears female, yet is endowed with its bold white protrusion. In fact, this appears to be a legacy of a belief Klapheck, who had no siblings, developed during his youth: he believed that girls too had the equivalent of male genitalia, and has here presented a super-sized version of it in this picture.
The presence of this tumescent element of domestic plumbing is all the more appropriate as the picture was inspired by a photograph taken of the Spanish painter and artistic titan of the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso. That image, the first of many to be shot by David Douglas Duncan during the productive friendship that sprung up between the artist and the photographer, showed Picasso in the bath with the taps next to him, the tube coiled around them, as in Die Mäitresse. Picasso, who remained a significant and vital presence in the European art world when Klapheck painted Die Mäitresse in 1964, was himself considered by many to be an image of machismo, seducing many women during the course of his lifetime. This adds an extra element of subversive play to Die Mäitresse, which takes as its subject matter and source a sidelined element within the intimate environs of the bathroom of Picasso himself.