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Lot Essay
Originally trained as a bricklayer, Franz Radziwill later taught himself the refined techniques of Renaissance oil painting, developing a style marked by meticulous precision, particularly in his renderings of architecture and landscape. His paintings often reward close observation, revealing subtle details such as unexpected fields of colour or ornamental patterns that emerge only upon second glance. Radziwill frequently contrasted colourful landscapes with vast, ominous dark skies on the verge of a storm, imbuing his scenes with surreal elements. As a pioneering figure of Neue Sachlichkeit, Radziwill became renowned for his unique ability to evoke eerie, often tense atmospheres through the integration of Magical Realist elements. Nonetheless, these mature works continue to bear traces from his earlier Expressionist œuvre, as can be seen through the bold colours and shapes found within them.
Settling by the North Sea in the German low lands, natural events such the foreboding of advancing heavy storms and spring tides were a common phenomenon that fascinated the artist deeply. He developed a strong sense of the fragility of human kind in the face of natural forces. He had also seen and been part of the utter destruction that humans caused in both world wars. His life-long fascination with technical achievements such as machines, ocean liners or planes was always coupled with the fear of their destructive potential. Increasingly, this included humanity’s relationship with the natural world and the cosmos. In his paintings, he often contrasted nature and technical machines and criticized the race for the orbit as an intrusion into the divine sphere of heaven.
Radziwill painted Hochwasser (Das Wasser steigt) in 1957. It shows the outskirts of a larger town, submerged in water. The title suggest that the water is still rising. It shows catastrophe for all life which needs rescue from the sky in the shape of a helicopter and an angel. The heavens have literately opened up and let the waters come down. The central surreal element in the dominating sky suggests that there that the disaster at hand is almost supernatural in its nature. While the artist had seen many high tides, they were nowhere near the concerningly high levels depicted in the painting. However, such a disaster would come to pass only a few years later. In 1962, the Northern town of Hamburg was hit by one of the most catastrophic floods in German history, devastating the homes of 60,000 inhabitants, killing over 300 and many more across Northern Europe. This painting has thus become an visionary warning which is becoming ever more relevant. The artist became a strong advocate for nature conservation or the rest of his life.
Settling by the North Sea in the German low lands, natural events such the foreboding of advancing heavy storms and spring tides were a common phenomenon that fascinated the artist deeply. He developed a strong sense of the fragility of human kind in the face of natural forces. He had also seen and been part of the utter destruction that humans caused in both world wars. His life-long fascination with technical achievements such as machines, ocean liners or planes was always coupled with the fear of their destructive potential. Increasingly, this included humanity’s relationship with the natural world and the cosmos. In his paintings, he often contrasted nature and technical machines and criticized the race for the orbit as an intrusion into the divine sphere of heaven.
Radziwill painted Hochwasser (Das Wasser steigt) in 1957. It shows the outskirts of a larger town, submerged in water. The title suggest that the water is still rising. It shows catastrophe for all life which needs rescue from the sky in the shape of a helicopter and an angel. The heavens have literately opened up and let the waters come down. The central surreal element in the dominating sky suggests that there that the disaster at hand is almost supernatural in its nature. While the artist had seen many high tides, they were nowhere near the concerningly high levels depicted in the painting. However, such a disaster would come to pass only a few years later. In 1962, the Northern town of Hamburg was hit by one of the most catastrophic floods in German history, devastating the homes of 60,000 inhabitants, killing over 300 and many more across Northern Europe. This painting has thus become an visionary warning which is becoming ever more relevant. The artist became a strong advocate for nature conservation or the rest of his life.