Portrait of the Artist's Mother
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen (Aachen 1894 - Nizza 1970)
Lot-No. 241
1913. Oil/canvas. 66 x 66 cm. Lo. ri. sign. H. Davring, on the reverse dat. 1913. Zustand Few small professeional rest. and retouchings. In the unusual and challenging square format, Davringhausen created a painting as early as 1913 that creates a fascinating tension from its balanced composition and almost explosive colouring. The artist models the volume almost exclusively with the colours. The vibrating black contours are hardly able to hold the colours in place. The face of the artist's mother, recognizably more finely worked, enters into a tense relationship with the exotic flower, which is similar in colour and arranged at the same height. Just this intense relationship creates a harmonious balance of the composition. This early masterpiece hardly suggests that the artist who created it was only 19 years old. But it makes clear why the unusually talented young artist, who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy for no more than two years, was able to exhibit at the Flechtheim Gallery as early as 1914, a year after the portrait of his mother was created, where important names of the European avant-garde were represented from the very beginning. The portrait shows Davringhausen at an early peak of his skill and in a phase of intense creative processes. In the period of a few years around 1913, he produced neo-impressionist as well as two-dimensional color-intensive paintings in the wake of Matisse, cubist motifs, including another portrait of his mother from 1913, and shortly thereafter already ‘New Objectivity‘ works. - Literature: Cat. rais.: Eimert 63; Heuser von Waldegg 17. - Provenance: Acquired by the consignor from the artist's daughter in October 2007. - German painter. D. studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in 1913/14. The loss of an eye in childhood saved him from military service. Already in 1914 he exhibited at the Flechtheim Gallery. After a stay with his friend Carlo Mense on Monte Verità in Ascona, he settled in Berlin in 1915. He became a member of leading avant-garde artists' associations such as 'Junges Rheinland', the Munich 'Novembergruppe' and was a co-founder of the 'Neue Sachlichkeit' group there. Because of his Jewish wife, he left Germany as early as 1933 and, after several stops, settled in the south of France. Many of his works were confiscated by the National Socialists as 'degenerate' or burned during the war. D. was a versatile artist and always at the height of his time, proving to be a leader in different artistic phases. Mus.: Munich (Neue Pinakothek), Bonn (Rhein. Landesmus.), Münster (Westfälisches Landesmus.), Darmstadt (Hess. Landesmus.). Lit.: AKL, Vollmer, Eimert: H. M. D. Monographie und Werkverzeichnis 1995 a. others.
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen: Portrait of the Artist's Mother
Heinrich Maria Davringhausen (Aachen 1894 - Nizza 1970)
Portrait of the Artist's Mother
Lot-No. 241
1913. Oil/canvas. 66 x 66 cm. Lo. ri. sign. H. Davring, on the reverse dat. 1913. Zustand Few small professeional rest. and retouchings. In the unusual and challenging square format, Davringhausen created a painting as early as 1913 that creates a fascinating tension from its balanced composition and almost explosive colouring. The artist models the volume almost exclusively with the colours. The vibrating black contours are hardly able to hold the colours in place. The face of the artist's mother, recognizably more finely worked, enters into a tense relationship with the exotic flower, which is similar in colour and arranged at the same height. Just this intense relationship creates a harmonious balance of the composition. This early masterpiece hardly suggests that the artist who created it was only 19 years old. But it makes clear why the unusually talented young artist, who studied at the Düsseldorf Academy for no more than two years, was able to exhibit at the Flechtheim Gallery as early as 1914, a year after the portrait of his mother was created, where important names of the European avant-garde were represented from the very beginning. The portrait shows Davringhausen at an early peak of his skill and in a phase of intense creative processes. In the period of a few years around 1913, he produced neo-impressionist as well as two-dimensional color-intensive paintings in the wake of Matisse, cubist motifs, including another portrait of his mother from 1913, and shortly thereafter already ‘New Objectivity‘ works. - Literature: Cat. rais.: Eimert 63; Heuser von Waldegg 17. - Provenance: Acquired by the consignor from the artist's daughter in October 2007. - German painter. D. studied at the Düsseldorf Academy in 1913/14. The loss of an eye in childhood saved him from military service. Already in 1914 he exhibited at the Flechtheim Gallery. After a stay with his friend Carlo Mense on Monte Verità in Ascona, he settled in Berlin in 1915. He became a member of leading avant-garde artists' associations such as 'Junges Rheinland', the Munich 'Novembergruppe' and was a co-founder of the 'Neue Sachlichkeit' group there. Because of his Jewish wife, he left Germany as early as 1933 and, after several stops, settled in the south of France. Many of his works were confiscated by the National Socialists as 'degenerate' or burned during the war. D. was a versatile artist and always at the height of his time, proving to be a leader in different artistic phases. Mus.: Munich (Neue Pinakothek), Bonn (Rhein. Landesmus.), Münster (Westfälisches Landesmus.), Darmstadt (Hess. Landesmus.). Lit.: AKL, Vollmer, Eimert: H. M. D. Monographie und Werkverzeichnis 1995 a. others.
