Franz Radziwill - Bauerndorf. Verso: Stehender Akt mit Hühnern

Franz Radziwill

Bauerndorf. Verso: Stehender Akt mit Hühnern
1923 (recto) resp. 1920-1921 (verso)

Oil on canvas. 80 x 85.5 cm. Framed. Monogrammed 'F R.' in dark blue lower right. Verso inscribed 'Erinnerung an Dangast' on stretcher. - In very fine condition with fresh colours.

This important, double-sided painting comes from Franz Radziwill’s expressive early work. It is defined by open, broadly flowing bands of colour and symbol-like, abbreviated forms but already anticipates something of the enigmatic components from his later magical realist oeuvre.
On the front side of the canvas, created in 1923, the painter has used luminous colours and energetic lineation to capture a view of the house he had just purchased in Dangast, a former fisherman's cottage, nestled among the fields and trees and resting snugly alongside the curving country lane. The optical emphasis placed on this central motif through the dense, boldly colourful manner of painting is striking. Conversely, the trees and the houses of his neighbours alongside and behind his property are recorded in black-and-white contrasts with just a few modest accents of colour, causing them to clearly recede behind the centre of the picture.
The painting is dedicated to the art historian and writer Wilhelm Niemeyer (1874-1960), who had been decisively supporting the artist since 1922 and visited him in Dangast the year this work was created. He owned it from 1924 and, for a long time, it was exhibited as a loan at the Schleswig-Holstein state museum in Gottorf Castle.
The image on what is now the reverse side was created somewhat earlier and depicts a standing female nude holding a bird in her hand and placed within the setting of a village. The agitated hens and villagers in the background underscore the humorously absurd character of the scene, whose additive juxtaposition of people and animals in a rural context recalls motifs by Marc Chagall.

Catalogue Raisonné

Firmenich/Schulze 156 (recto) and 62 (verso)

Provenance

Collection Wilhelm Niemeyer, Hamburg (acquired directly from the artist around 1924); Christie's London, Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, 25 June 2008, lot 565; Collection Hoh, Fürth; Christie's London, Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, 29 June 2022, lot 512; Private collection, South Germany

Literature

Gerhard Wietek, Franz Radziwill und Wilhelm Niemeyer - Dokumente einer Freundschaft, Oldenburg 1990, p. 369 with illus. no. 138 ("Bauerndorf"), p. 314 with illus. no. 71 ("Stehender Akt mit Hühnern")

Exhibitions

Berlin 1921 (Kunsthandlung Alfred Heller, für "Stehender Akt mit Hühnern"), Huth, Kaus, Mueller, Nolde, Radziwill, Emy Roeder, Schmidt-Rottluff, without no.; Schleswig 1978 - 1999 (Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum Schloss Gottorf), Dauerleihgabe; Dangast 2012 - 2013 (Franz Radziwill Haus), Franz Radziwill: Entdeckungen, cat. no. 15, p. 134, illus. p. 106 ("Bauerndorf"); Nuremberg 2020 - 2022 (Germanisches Nationalmuseum), Leihgabe; Dangast 2023 - 2024 (Franz Radziwill Haus), Franz Radziwill - Alles auf Anfang, cat. no. 20 with illus. p. 101 ("Bauerndorf"), cat. no. 4 with illus. p. 85 ("Stehender Akt mit Hühnern"); Dangast 2024 - 2025, Was da kreucht und fleucht. Radziwills Tierwelten ("Stehender Akt mit Hühnern")