Lot 316 Dα

The highlights of Alexander Kanoldt's work from before the First World War include the now rare, Cubist-influenced paintings of his early oeuvre: new landscapes and urban architectures that preceded the further developments of the 1920s. It is well-known that Kanoldt was among the most important protagonists of the “New Objectivity”. After having familiarised himself with and come to terms with Pointillism and Expressionism, particularly the colourful two-dimensional style of fellow artist Jawlensky, Kanoldt seems to have become aware of the work of Picasso, Braque and Derain for the first time in 1910, at the Neue Künstlervereinigung's second exhibition at Thannhauser's gallery. He would develop a certain affinity for the Cubist formal vocabulary of Derain, in particular. During his travels prior to 1914, Kanoldt created not just the important and seminal images of Italian motifs like those from San Gimignano but also the exemplary pictures from Klausen in South Tyrol.
The whereabouts of the present painting from the collection of the Düsseldorf doctor Hans Koch were long unknown, but it had already been reproduced and published in 1912. According to information by Michael Koch, the photograph used for this purpose indicates the provenances Flechtheim and Koch; in addition, the year of origin 1912 is authenticated by a photo inscription by Kanoldt in one of his personal work albums. A preliminary drawing can be found in one of Kanoldt's sketchbooks. In 1920 the painting was exhibited in Düsseldorf at the Große Kunstausstellung in the Kunstpalast.
This remarkable, large-format composition distils the motif of “Klausen” down to the geometrical depiction of architectural structures layered in space, including the bold cropping of the dominant church tower in the form of a soaring rectangular block in the right half of the picture. This neutralised and reserved representation using a limited palette and carefully placed contrasts of brightness expresses itself through various thoroughly nuanced shades of grey, which are joined in an atmospheric and delicate manner by the red of the roofs and the green of the vegetation indicated along the edge of the composition. The dark planar structure is animated through the use of the brush and a slightly roughened surface resulting from the primer's coarse grain, which seems to have been very deliberately utilised.
“In Kanoldt's pictures of houses, the image of the town was formed from the inside out for the first time. [...] The compactness and the heavy stillness of Cubist forms speak strongly to this painter, who thus joins and layers strictly delineated planes into a powerful structure. His colour is substantial, binding and possesses a brooding maturity. [...] Just as in his paintings, everything superfluous seems to have been eliminated in his process and, indeed, in his development. He certainly adheres to the given, and nonetheless completely transforms it. [...] Works like these bear the stamp of necessity.” (Otto Fischer, 1912, in: Das Neue Bild, op. cit., pp. 37 f.).