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Lot Essay
Liegende Frau and Bildnis Mo van Haugk were painted by Fleixmüller eleven years apart on opposite sides of this canvas, in 1923 and 1932 respectively. Liegende Frau (mit Fleider) depicts a sensuous reclining nude painted with rich colours and strong curvaceous brushstrokes. The young woman, his wife Londa Freiin von Berg, is surrounded by purple lilacs, a symbol of a passionate first love and confidence in partnership. With her legs drawn up against her body, she stretches her left arm and fist towards the viewer, gazing down on her own lascivious pose thereby marginalizing her surroundings from this sensual moment.
Bildnis Mo van Haugk (mit Katze) was executed on the verso of the same canvas in 1932 and portrays their common friend Mo von Haugk with her cat. Von Haugk was a well-known socialite, and a passionate collector and supporter of the artist’s work. Felixmüller chose to depict her in a flamboyant manner, leaning elegantly with her elbows on a mahogany sideboard, her folded hands stretched in the air. Similarly to his young wife, Mo is gazing away from the viewer, contemplatively staring to the right, her lips formed to a cynical smile, the left eyebrow slightly raised.
The two works liaise in a contrasting and simultaneously harmonic, relationship. On the one hand, a strong difference between brushstroke, colour and subject matter is evident. On the other hand, the two works illustrate the interplay between the sensual femininity and elegant sophistication of a woman.
The present work is a time record of Felixmüller’s career, referencing the changes that evoked the artist’s style of painting. After abandoning his music studies in 1911, he began his fine arts studies at the Dresdner Kunstakademie, and early on was part of an exhibition at the Galerie Sturm in Berlin in 1916. He developed his expressionist way of working further, when, together with Lasar Segall, Otto Dix and Otto Griebel, he founded the Dresdner secessionist group in 1919 and became a member of the Novembergruppe. During the 1920s however, Felixmüller moved gradually away from the expressionist and cubist way of painting, to a more realistic style and subject matter, centred on portraiture, working class depictions and private scenes. Liegende Frau (mit Flieder) and Bildnis Mo von Haugk (mit Katze) are representative of this change of style - where the work painted in 1923 illustrates the artist’s expressionist way of working, the work painted in 1932 relates stylistically already to the art of the Neuesachlichkeit.
Bildnis Mo van Haugk (mit Katze) was executed on the verso of the same canvas in 1932 and portrays their common friend Mo von Haugk with her cat. Von Haugk was a well-known socialite, and a passionate collector and supporter of the artist’s work. Felixmüller chose to depict her in a flamboyant manner, leaning elegantly with her elbows on a mahogany sideboard, her folded hands stretched in the air. Similarly to his young wife, Mo is gazing away from the viewer, contemplatively staring to the right, her lips formed to a cynical smile, the left eyebrow slightly raised.
The two works liaise in a contrasting and simultaneously harmonic, relationship. On the one hand, a strong difference between brushstroke, colour and subject matter is evident. On the other hand, the two works illustrate the interplay between the sensual femininity and elegant sophistication of a woman.
The present work is a time record of Felixmüller’s career, referencing the changes that evoked the artist’s style of painting. After abandoning his music studies in 1911, he began his fine arts studies at the Dresdner Kunstakademie, and early on was part of an exhibition at the Galerie Sturm in Berlin in 1916. He developed his expressionist way of working further, when, together with Lasar Segall, Otto Dix and Otto Griebel, he founded the Dresdner secessionist group in 1919 and became a member of the Novembergruppe. During the 1920s however, Felixmüller moved gradually away from the expressionist and cubist way of painting, to a more realistic style and subject matter, centred on portraiture, working class depictions and private scenes. Liegende Frau (mit Flieder) and Bildnis Mo von Haugk (mit Katze) are representative of this change of style - where the work painted in 1923 illustrates the artist’s expressionist way of working, the work painted in 1932 relates stylistically already to the art of the Neuesachlichkeit.