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Lot Essay
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Max Pechstein.
Attracted by the dynamic life of the big city Pechstein was the first of the Brücke artists to move to Berlin in 1908. Although already familiar with much of the work of the Fauves, it was in Berlin at the Paul Cassirer Gallery that he saw Matisse's work for the first time.
Stilleben was executed shortly after Cassirer's exhibition of Matisse's work in 1909. The composition is effective and richly structured, with different motifs and the background against which they are arranged all given the same degree of importance, so that the painting becomes essentially a series of different ornamented pictorial zones. Pechstein's employment of strong black outlines reflects the influence of Matisse, but the use of a particularly strong vibrant colour, the more angular and pointed shapes and the more nervous and brutal use of colouring, is strongly characteristic of the Brücke's aesthetic.
Heavily painted with bold sweeps of thick colour, Pechstein creates a panorama of form and strong colour that in its density conveys a powerful sense of the solidity and materiality of the still life. It is these features of the work that go beyond anything painted by the Fauves and which distinguish this vibrant still-life as an expressionistic work that anticipates the full-flowering of the artist's work only one year later.
Attracted by the dynamic life of the big city Pechstein was the first of the Brücke artists to move to Berlin in 1908. Although already familiar with much of the work of the Fauves, it was in Berlin at the Paul Cassirer Gallery that he saw Matisse's work for the first time.
Stilleben was executed shortly after Cassirer's exhibition of Matisse's work in 1909. The composition is effective and richly structured, with different motifs and the background against which they are arranged all given the same degree of importance, so that the painting becomes essentially a series of different ornamented pictorial zones. Pechstein's employment of strong black outlines reflects the influence of Matisse, but the use of a particularly strong vibrant colour, the more angular and pointed shapes and the more nervous and brutal use of colouring, is strongly characteristic of the Brücke's aesthetic.
Heavily painted with bold sweeps of thick colour, Pechstein creates a panorama of form and strong colour that in its density conveys a powerful sense of the solidity and materiality of the still life. It is these features of the work that go beyond anything painted by the Fauves and which distinguish this vibrant still-life as an expressionistic work that anticipates the full-flowering of the artist's work only one year later.