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拍品专文
Dr Aya Soika will include this painting in her forthcoming Pechstein catalogue raisonné.
Femmes des îles was probably painted circa 1924, when Pechstein visited the lung specialist Dr Walter Minnich in his house in Montreux. Executed in situ, the present work probably functioned as a room divider in Minnich's guest apartment. Dr Minnich became a good friend of the artist and was able to acquire several works by him, as well as others by Soutine, Dufy and Vlaminck. Minnich donated the majority of his collection to the Museum of Art in Lucerne in 1937.
In subject matter, Femmes des îles strongly recalls Pechstein's Palau period. Like Nolde, Pechstein was fascinated by the primitive and wanted to experience at first-hand native societies in their unspoiled, environments. This desire led him to travel to the South Seas island of Palau in 1914, a trip that was financed by Wolfgang Gurlitt, his dealer and friend. However, Pechstein's sojourn on the island was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I and the invasion of the islands by Japanese troops forced him to return to Germany. After two years of military service Pechstein executed his famous series of Palau paintings in 1917, based on the verbal and pictorial sketches which he had kept in his Palau Diary.
These rare paintings owe much to Gauguin, particularly in their idealised view of the natives and their lifestyle, but also in the rich palette he employed to translate the vibrant atmosphere he had encountered on his trip. 'I was surrounded by an unsurpassable natural lushness. Incomparably fertile growth extended everywhere, plants never before seen, palms and bread fruits rose up, bamboos and sugar beet. In this verdure huge colourful butterflies fluttered about - you could almost say that they took the place of flowers. The eternal ocean shimmered with unbelievable colours. The glowing sun threw out beams of light which Europeans would never suppose to exist. In such nature, out of such nature, the brown natives grow. Slim, bronzed beings in their godly nudity. The women wearing only little skirts, made of palm leaves of grass, around their hips' (Pechstein, quoted in J. Lloyd, German Expressionism, Primitivism and Modernity, New Haven & London, 1991, p. 201).
Femmes des îles was probably painted circa 1924, when Pechstein visited the lung specialist Dr Walter Minnich in his house in Montreux. Executed in situ, the present work probably functioned as a room divider in Minnich's guest apartment. Dr Minnich became a good friend of the artist and was able to acquire several works by him, as well as others by Soutine, Dufy and Vlaminck. Minnich donated the majority of his collection to the Museum of Art in Lucerne in 1937.
In subject matter, Femmes des îles strongly recalls Pechstein's Palau period. Like Nolde, Pechstein was fascinated by the primitive and wanted to experience at first-hand native societies in their unspoiled, environments. This desire led him to travel to the South Seas island of Palau in 1914, a trip that was financed by Wolfgang Gurlitt, his dealer and friend. However, Pechstein's sojourn on the island was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I and the invasion of the islands by Japanese troops forced him to return to Germany. After two years of military service Pechstein executed his famous series of Palau paintings in 1917, based on the verbal and pictorial sketches which he had kept in his Palau Diary.
These rare paintings owe much to Gauguin, particularly in their idealised view of the natives and their lifestyle, but also in the rich palette he employed to translate the vibrant atmosphere he had encountered on his trip. 'I was surrounded by an unsurpassable natural lushness. Incomparably fertile growth extended everywhere, plants never before seen, palms and bread fruits rose up, bamboos and sugar beet. In this verdure huge colourful butterflies fluttered about - you could almost say that they took the place of flowers. The eternal ocean shimmered with unbelievable colours. The glowing sun threw out beams of light which Europeans would never suppose to exist. In such nature, out of such nature, the brown natives grow. Slim, bronzed beings in their godly nudity. The women wearing only little skirts, made of palm leaves of grass, around their hips' (Pechstein, quoted in J. Lloyd, German Expressionism, Primitivism and Modernity, New Haven & London, 1991, p. 201).