MIXED MEDIA (I)

About Portrait

EXHIBITION Mar 10 — Apr 24, 2015

MAX KAUS (1891–1977)

Entsetzen vor dem Spiegel / Horror in Front of the Mirror, 1919

lithograph on laid paper

37,8 X 32,7 cm

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

ERWIN BLUMENFELD (1897–1969)

My first Self Portrait, Berlin, 1911

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1950

35,5 x 27,8 cm

© 2015 Yvette Blumenfeld Georges Deeton / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

ERWIN BLUMENFELD (1897–1969)

Shadow, New York, 1942

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1957 or earlier in the 50s

33,8 x 26,2 cm

© 2015 Yvette Blumenfeld Georges Deeton / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936)

Untitled (Young Woman with Small Hat), after 1930

gelatin silver print, mounted under mat, printed after 1930

2,7 x 30,5 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936)

Untitled (Mädchen mit Kranz), 1920s

color bromoil transfer print

28 x 26,5 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

ERWIN BLUEMNFELD (1897–1969)

Erika Mann, Amsterdam, 1934

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1934

30 x 24,3 cm

© 2015 Yvette Blumenfeld Georges Deeton / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936)

Untitled (Frauenkopf), ca. 1925

gum print, printed ca. 1925

30,8 x 25,8 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HEINRICH KÜHN (1866–1944)

Untitled (Lady in Profile), ca. 1902

carbon print

30 x 23,8 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

ERWIN BLUMENFELD (1897–1969)

Leonor Fini, Paris, ca. 1938

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1938

29,9 x 24,2 cm

© 2015 Yvette Blumenfeld Georges Deeton / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

FERDINAND HODLER (1853–1918)

Bildnis einer Unbekannten / Portrait of an Unknown Woman, ca. 1880

oil on canvas

40 x 32,5 cm

© Public Domain / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936))

Mutter Koppitz, 1912

bromoil transfer print

24 x 18 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

KÄTHE KOLLWITZ (1867–1945)

Selbstbildnis / Self portrait, 1915

chalk lithograph (transfer) on laid paper

27,2 x 23,8 cm

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

CHRISTIAN LANDENBERGER (1862–1927)

Portrait Christine Barbara Friz, 1885

oil on canvas

42,8 x 30,7 cm

© Public Domain / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

JEANNE MAMMEN (1890–1976)

Junge Frau mit Brille und Haartolle am Zeichenbrett / Young Woman with Glasses and Hair Quiff at the Drawing Board, ca. 1930

pencil drawing on vellum

42 x 27,5 cm

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HELMAR LERSKI (1870–1956)

Stenotypistin (aus der Serie 'Köpfe des Alltags') / Stenotypist (from the Series 'Köpfe des Alltags'), ca. 1928-1931

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1928-31

23 x 17 cm

© Estate Helmar Lerski, Fotografische Sammlung, Museum Folkwang, Essen / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

MAX BECKMANN (1984–1950)

Selbstbildnis / Self portrait, 1922

woodcut on laid paper

22 x 15,4 cm

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HELMAR LERSKI (1870–1956)

Metamorphosis, 591,; from the series: 'Metamorphosis through Light', Tel Aviv, 1935-36

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1935-36

29,1 x 22,8 cm

© Estate Helmar Lerski, Fotografische Sammlung, Museum Folkwang, Essen / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

EMIL NOLDE (1867–1956)

Prophet, 1912

woodcut on laid paper

30,9 x 23,9 cm

© Nolde Stiftung Seebuell / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HELMAR LERSKI (1870–1956)

Untitled, 197, from the series: 'Arabs and Jews', Palestine, 1931-35

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1931-35

29,2 x 23 cm

© Estate Helmar Lerski, Fotografische Sammlung, Museum Folkwang, Essen / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

LOVIS CORINTH (1858–1925)

Weiblicher Studienkopf III, 1919

transfer lithograph on paper

21 x 15 cm

© Public Domain / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

FRANCIS PICABIA (1879–1953)

Untitled (Head), ca. 1945

oil on paper on cardboard

54,9 x 45,9 cm

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HELMAR LERSKI (1870–1956)

Untitled (335, from the series 'Arabs and Jews'), ca. 1931-1935

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1931-1935

29,2 x 23,2 cm

© Estate Helmar Lerski, Fotografische Sammlung, Museum Folkwang, Essen / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936)

Untitled (Peasant Woman), after 1930

gelatin silver print, mounted under mat, printed after 1930

31,2 x 25,9 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

LOVIS CORINTH (1858–1925)

Selbstbildnis / Self portrait, 1922

dry point etching on Japanese paper

16,5 x 10,5 cm

© Public Domain / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

EMIL NOLDE (1867–1956)

E.N. (Selbstporträt) / E.N. (Self portrait), 1908

etching on copperplate cardboard

30,9 x 23,9 cm

© Nolde Stiftung Seebuell / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

ERWIN BLUMENFELD (1897–1969)

Georges Rouault, Paris, 1937-1938

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1937-1938

29,9 x 22,8 cm

© 2015 Yvette Blumenfeld Georges Deeton / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HELMAR LERSKI (1870–1956)

Junger Bettler' aus der Serie 'Köpfe des Alltags', ca. 1930

gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1930

23,1 x 16,8 cm

© Estate Helmar Lerski, Fotografische Sammlung, Museum Folkwang, Essen / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

OTTO DIX (1891–1969)

Portrait Lasar Segall, 1921

pencil drawing on paper

39,5 x 31,8 cm

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015 / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HEINRICH KÜHN (1866–1944)

Porträt meines Jungen (Walther Kühn), ca. 1902

brown gum print

73 x 55,3 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER (1876–1907)

Sitzendes Kind an einer Birke (Kind mit Frucht), 1905

oil on canvas

64,4 x 47,5 cm

© Public Domain / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936)

Untitled (Girl sitting on a block), ca. 1928

gum print

29,6 x 21,5 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

HEINRICH KÜHN (1866–1944)

Untitled (Hans Kühn), ca. 1906

oil or bromoil transfer print, printed ca. 1906

30 x 24 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

RUDOLF KOPPITZ (1884–1936)

Untitled (Child with sculpture), ca. 1925 - 1926

bromoil transfer print, printed ca. 1925

36 x 18 cm

© Estate of the Artist / Courtesy Kicken Berlin

The March 7, 2015 opening of the exhibition Mixed Media I: About Portrait will inaugurate a new and irregular exhibition series that aims to manifest the relationships among different media. Photography, painting, drawing, graphic design, and sculpture from the modern period through to contemporary art will come together in a fascinating conversation. The first presentation, from March 7 through April 24, 2015, is dedicated to portraiture and brings together photographs, drawings, and prints of various themes, materials, and epochs. Their impressive pictorial diversity, ranging from nineteenth-century Impressionism to the surreal aesthetics of the mid 1940s, can be experienced anew in countless pairings. Ferdinand Hodler encounters Erwin Blumenfeld; Heinrich Kühn faces Erich Heckel; Helmar Lerski meets Emil Nolde. The portrait has long been central to Western art. One of the most popular genres of fine art, it contributed greatly to the development of individualistic representation. The nineteenth century invented innovative portraiture with its representation of the private. Portraits of the early modern period, beginning with Impressionism, conveyed mindset and sensory perception in open-ended, subjective images. In expressionist art, totality and social status receded into the background, foregrounding instead the desire to visualize the internal. World War I exploded all obligations. The interwar period sought to forge new identities of both singular individuals and the true face of the classes, be the interpretations expressive in gesture, exaggerated in caricature, or soberly observant. At the same time, photography underwent a transition: from the conventional mass portraiture of the cartes de visite to the ambitious amateur scenes and the realization of Pictorialism’s “subjective eye.” As in other arts, the photographic portrait reflected the times: sociopolitical upheaval and radically new aesthetics. In Heinrich Kühn’s and Rudolf Koppitz’s Pictorialist portraits of children and women as well as in Paula Modersohn-Becker’s paintings of the same subjects, the themes of the private and the intimate intersect with a connection to nature and physicality. The physical signs transport the sense of an individual being and leave palpable impressions in Kühn’s and Modersohn-Becker’s images, while Koppitz’s children’s portraits also convey their realistic essence. Such realism is also present in Käthe Kollwitz’s self-portrait from 1915. Koppitz similarly made objectively precise typological images for his series Land und Leute, which, despite their different visual language, correspond with the strong lines of Wilhelm Morgner’s and Christian Rohlfs’ forceful, expressionistic black-and-white images of men. Helmar Lerski’s physiognomic images in light prove particularly malleable in conversation with any number of different works of his contemporaries. The female portrait from the Berlin series Köpfe des Alltags and Jeanne Mammen’s drawing of a woman show two versions of the new woman, sketched in but a few fine lines and details. The strong aspect of the young man in Metamorphosis 591 from Lerski’s masterwork Metamorphoses through Light (1935-36) matches the severe, linear notion of Max Beckmann’s 1922 woodcut self portrait. The effects of light on textures such as hair and skin tone, which seems to glow from within, can be seen in both Erwin Blumenfeld’s and Jeanne Mammen’s work. Blumenfeld used montage and other darkroom techniques to create surreal images of haunting beauty, as in his portrait of Erika Mann. Details and framing emphasize a glance, a flood of curly hair, or a silhouette. Such reduction serves to capture characteristics such as self-confidence or introspection. Lovis Corinth’s sketched self-portrait, Hodler’s painted portrait of a woman, and Erwin Blumenfeld’s photographic portrait of artist Leonor Fini also make use of the same focus. From the end of the nineteenth century onward, related imagery and concepts appeared in various materials independently from one another. Our exploration of modern painters’ and photographers’ parallel views brings to light both surprising and convincing correlations and visual echoes in themes, compositions, and styles. The zeitgeist is evident in all.
We would like to thank Kunsthandel Jörg Maaß (Berlin), Galerie Michael Haas (Berlin/Zürich), and Kunsthaus Bühler (Stuttgart) for their kind collaboration.