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Lot Essay
By 1909, Kirchner was painting in a style distinctly his own and one which was inspired by the radical new painting techniques of his Brücke partners, Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, and Pechstein. Gone were the tentative experiments with French divisionism, reworkings of Van Gogh or the influence of the Fauves: the "new painting" was fluid, colourist, raw and individualistically self-confident. As they painted together in Dresden and began to show together at Kunstsalon Richter, the confidence of the young Brücke painters grew rapidly and the strength of the new brotherhood began to shine through in their paintings. Sonnenblummen is an exuberant statement painting: full of raw power and full of the positive energy of a young artist who had quickly become the spokesperson for the Brücke movement.
The vigour of Sonnenblummen seems to express in paint Kirchner's words in the Brücke group's official manifesto of 1906:
"With a belief in progress and in a new generation of creators and supporters we summon all youth together. As youth we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and movement in opposition to the well-established older forces. Everybody belongs to our cause who reproduces directly and passionately whatever urges him to create" (quoted in B. Herbert, German Expressionism - Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, p. 34.).
In the same way as many Fauve painters pre-dated their works in order to appear the most avant-garde of their contemporaries, Kirchner in his handlists dated Sonnenblummen as a work executed in 1904. We know that this is not the case. Gordon dates the work from 1909, although he had apparently not seen the painting. Dr. Wolfgang Henze, in turn, has suggested in 1989 that the painting may well have been retouched in some areas by Kirchner when Erna sent it to him in Davos in 1918. Thereafter, the work was sold to Willem van Vloten of Malans between 1918 and 1920 in whose family collection it remained until its sale at Christie's, London, in 1989. Prior to this the painting had been presumably lost.
The vigour of Sonnenblummen seems to express in paint Kirchner's words in the Brücke group's official manifesto of 1906:
"With a belief in progress and in a new generation of creators and supporters we summon all youth together. As youth we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and movement in opposition to the well-established older forces. Everybody belongs to our cause who reproduces directly and passionately whatever urges him to create" (quoted in B. Herbert, German Expressionism - Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter, London, 1983, p. 34.).
In the same way as many Fauve painters pre-dated their works in order to appear the most avant-garde of their contemporaries, Kirchner in his handlists dated Sonnenblummen as a work executed in 1904. We know that this is not the case. Gordon dates the work from 1909, although he had apparently not seen the painting. Dr. Wolfgang Henze, in turn, has suggested in 1989 that the painting may well have been retouched in some areas by Kirchner when Erna sent it to him in Davos in 1918. Thereafter, the work was sold to Willem van Vloten of Malans between 1918 and 1920 in whose family collection it remained until its sale at Christie's, London, in 1989. Prior to this the painting had been presumably lost.