Karl Hofer - Mädchen mit Kürbissen

Karl Hofer

Mädchen mit Kürbissen
Circa 1929/1930

Oil on canvas. 115.2 x 105.4 cm. Framed. Monogrammed 'CH' (joined) in dark red lower left. - In very good condition with vibrant colours. Lower edges of the picture slightly and inconspicuously rubbed.

Throughout his oeuvre, Karl Hofer painted girls and young women alone, in pairs or in groups, placing them within a space that is not defined any more specifically and connecting them with the arranging of flowers or reading a book or newspaper. The painting “Mädchen mit Kürbissen” from 1929/30, which is coming up for auction and formerly belonged to the Galerie Flechtheim, is an outstanding example from this series of works. A slender young woman wearing a white pinafore dress and a headscarf resembling a turban is standing behind a table with three large and three small squashes and pumpkins arranged on it in the form of a pyramid. The woman is holding a long, light-green squash in her left arm. It is impossible to more precisely identify the dark- and light-brown space surrounding her. Like most of the young women depicted by Hofer, this one does not establish any contact with the viewer; she seems withdrawn and conveys a seemingly exotic air.
As in the case of the well-known “Mädchen mit Schallplatte”, Hofer also painted five slightly varying versions of the woman holding a squash: the work here is the final one. As Daniela Maier writes, the “variation and repetition of a visual motif [is] a central principle of Hofer’s artistic compositions. Once he had found a visual idea, he distilled, clarified and honed it” (Daniela Maier, Variation und Wiederholung, in: Karl Hofer, exh. cat. Kunsthalle Emden 2012, p. 138). The “Mädchen mit Kürbissen” provides an outstanding example of this approach. Comparison with the preceding versions clearly demonstrates the painterly skill with which he was able to reduce the composition to a single figure, thus heightening its expressiveness.

Catalogue Raisonné

Wohlert 862 (B)

Provenance

Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin; College Art Association New York (1933); Worcester Art Museum, MA (inv. no. 1933.14; aquired at the exhib. "International 1933", New York)

Literature

I.a. Germany First to sell Picture at International, in: The Art Digest, 7 (1933), p. 6, with illus.; Paul B. Cott, Two Contemporary Paintings, in: Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum, 24 (1933/34), no. 1, p. 6; Clarence J. Bulliet, Art Masterpieces in a Century of Progress. Fine Arts Exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1933, no. 49; M. Breuning, Current Exhibitions (Karl Hofer at the Schaeffer Galleries), in: Parnassus, 9 (1937), p. 35; European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester 1974, p. 297-299, with colour illus.

Exhibitions

I.a. Worcester/New York 1933 (Worcester Art Museum/College Art Association), International 1933, cat. no. 109; Chicago 1933 (The Art Institute), A Century of Progress, cat. no. 753; New York 1937 (Schaeffer Galleries), Karl Hofer, cat. no. 22; Pomona 1950 (Los Angeles County Fair Association), Masters of Art from 1790 to 1950, no cat. no.; Berlin/Winterthur 1965/66 (Akademie der Künste/Kunstmuseum), Karl Hofer 1878-1955, cat. no. 34, with illus.