Lot Essay
After studying in Rome between 1903 and 1908 Hofer, like many of his German contemporaries, decided to spend time in Paris to study the work of the French avant-garde. "He chose an apartment at 29 Rue Boulard where Emil Schuffenecker and Max Klinger had lived - in the Montrouge quarter behind Montparnasse. His goal in Paris was to explore colour. His palette did diversify and brighten...The best assessment of Hofer's Paris years, 1908-1913, is an article published in 1914 by Karl Scheffler. In the early Paris years Scheffler sensed on the one hand the plastic, sculptural undergirding of the Roman period and on the other a painterly, impressionist surface. "In the end," Scheffler wrote, "a very painterly nature and power broke through the studied, statuesque, linear monumentalism of the Roman period. Scheffler noted parallels with Hodler, Gauguin, von Marées, Matisse ..." (I.K. Rigby, Karl Hofer, New York, 1976, pp. 69 - 71).
The present work was chosen for the important Maiausstellung in the Basel Kunsthalle in 1916 and for the first major retrospective exhibition of Hofers work in Mannheim in 1928.
We are grateful to Karl Bernhard Wohlert for his assistance in compiling the catalogue entry for this work.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Hofer catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Karl Bernhard Wohlert.
The present work was chosen for the important Maiausstellung in the Basel Kunsthalle in 1916 and for the first major retrospective exhibition of Hofers work in Mannheim in 1928.
We are grateful to Karl Bernhard Wohlert for his assistance in compiling the catalogue entry for this work.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Hofer catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Karl Bernhard Wohlert.