.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
In his capacity as Art Director at the Art Union in Jena, Germany, Walter Dexel came into close contact with an extensive network of artists and intellectuals. Some of the most influential were Jean (Hans) Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky, also associated with the Bauhaus movement, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy and Walter Gropius, as well as De Stijl artists, most notably Théo van Doesburg, with whom Dexel developed a close friendship from 1921 onwards. His work was later exhibited in several exhibitions alongside many of his fellow artists at Herwarth Walden's Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. Dexel's illustrious network of connections is not only representative of his prominent position within the avant-garde circles of the time, but the diverse milieu he was part of is also telling of the wide variety of practices he pursued; in fact he was not restricting himself to painting, but he was also practising design, scholarship, typography and curating.
Das schräge U or 'Sloping U' demonstrates Dexel at perhaps his most experimental and diverse, displaying how these various practices influenced his work. Executed on glass, Dexel skilfully and successfully manipulates the support by applying the oil paint with absolute precision, distilling the composition down to, in essence, a typographic shape represented in a brilliantly balanced contrast of pure colour blocks. Indeed, just a year before this work was executed, the publication of Tschichold's book Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography) had catalysed the adoption of modernist graphics in cities throughout Germany, including Magdeburg, where Dexel arrived in 1928 in order to take over a teaching post there, from his friend Johannes Molzahn. Das schräge U was surely a response to this publication and the seismic shift it instigated within the world of design and graphics.
In his tilt of the 'U' and symbiotic positioning of simple forms against a rich black background, Dexel masterfully creates this state of suspense and tension alongside that of absolute purity of form and calmness. 'It is this point that marks his bold contemporariness. His compositions are neither cold nor stark. The viability of the forms lies in their pleasant balance. Wolfradt describes Dexel as ''no Constructivist pedant and no Constructivist impostor''' (R. Wöbkemeier, W. Vitt & W. Hofmann, Walter Dexel 1890-1973: Werkverzeichnis, Gemälde, Hinterglasbilder, Gouachen, Aquarelle, Collagen, Ölstudien, Entwürfe zu Bühnenbildern, Heidelberg, 1995, p. 60). Painted in 1928, Das schräge U is an exceedingly rare and multifaceted example of the artist's late work, only nine years before he would abandon his painting practice all together.
Das schräge U or 'Sloping U' demonstrates Dexel at perhaps his most experimental and diverse, displaying how these various practices influenced his work. Executed on glass, Dexel skilfully and successfully manipulates the support by applying the oil paint with absolute precision, distilling the composition down to, in essence, a typographic shape represented in a brilliantly balanced contrast of pure colour blocks. Indeed, just a year before this work was executed, the publication of Tschichold's book Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography) had catalysed the adoption of modernist graphics in cities throughout Germany, including Magdeburg, where Dexel arrived in 1928 in order to take over a teaching post there, from his friend Johannes Molzahn. Das schräge U was surely a response to this publication and the seismic shift it instigated within the world of design and graphics.
In his tilt of the 'U' and symbiotic positioning of simple forms against a rich black background, Dexel masterfully creates this state of suspense and tension alongside that of absolute purity of form and calmness. 'It is this point that marks his bold contemporariness. His compositions are neither cold nor stark. The viability of the forms lies in their pleasant balance. Wolfradt describes Dexel as ''no Constructivist pedant and no Constructivist impostor''' (R. Wöbkemeier, W. Vitt & W. Hofmann, Walter Dexel 1890-1973: Werkverzeichnis, Gemälde, Hinterglasbilder, Gouachen, Aquarelle, Collagen, Ölstudien, Entwürfe zu Bühnenbildern, Heidelberg, 1995, p. 60). Painted in 1928, Das schräge U is an exceedingly rare and multifaceted example of the artist's late work, only nine years before he would abandon his painting practice all together.