1910s Figurative Prints

Oli Sasso is a colored lithographed original manifesto on cardboard, realized around 1914 by the Italian artist Plinio Nomellini. This modern artwork is signed on plate on higher left margin and has the inscriptions printed on lower margin in the image "Chiedere Catalogo e Campioni ai Sigg. Sasso Oneglia e Figli", under the image: "P. Nomellini/ Off. G. Ricordi and C. Milano / 140 x 200". From the Ricordi Portfolio...

Grand Hôtel Regoledo is a colored lithographed original manifesto on cardboard, realized around 1914 by the Italian artist Aldo Mazza. This modern artwork ...

Drypoint and aquatint (brown ink) on cream paper. Signed "Rehn" in pencil on the lower right margin. Titled and numbered in pencil on the lower left margin. Edition of 25 prints. Fro...

Hand signed. Edition of 200 copies. This beautiful etching belongs to the series of illustrations that the French artist André Dunoyer de Segonzac realized for the "Georgics" by the...

Kollwitz, Kathe. SCHWANGERE FRAU. Etching and soft ground, 1910. Klipstein 108(V) 14 7/8 x 9 3/8 inches (377 x 236 mm.). Signed in pencil, and with the names of the publisher Richter...

Drypoint and aquatint (brown ink) on cream paper. Signed "Rehn" in pencil on the lower right margin. Titled and numbered in pencil on the lower left margin. Edition of 25 prints. Fr...

Edition of 100 prints. Hand signed and numbered. Good conditions, just some minor stains on lower left margin. This artwork is shipped from Italy. Under existing legislation, any a...

Henri DeGroux (1866-1930) was a Belgian Symbolist painter, sculptor and lithographer. He was known for his allegorical, religious and historical subject matter. He became an inspired...

Ikarus und Daedalus is a beautiful etching and aquatint on ivory-colored paper realized in 1914 by the German expressionist artist, Fritz Zalisz (Gera 1893 - Holzhausen 1971). Signature and date in pencil on the lower right margin. In the etching on the lower margin, a long print inscription: "Betet nicht mehr! -Das sollt ihr mir schworen, brigt keine Opfer mehr, das sollt ihr geloben! - Herbert Eulenberg dem Dichter von Ikarus und Daedalus gewidmet. FZ". This dedicatory inscription refers to the well-known German poet and writer Herbert Eulenberg (1876-1949) who wrote the book "Ikarus und Daedalus. Ein Oratorium", Leipzig 1912. This original print represents the myth of Icarus and Dedalus with a suggestive symbolist composition, preserved nice impression and is in excellent condition. Fritz Zalisz (Gera 1893 - Holzhausen 1971). The German painter, graphic designer and sculptor Fritz Zalisz, considered one of the most important representatives of German expressionism, studied at the Leipzig Academy with Otto Richard Bossert and Alois Kolb...

The three prints included in this set are: "Retreat from Marignano", "Retreat from Marignano (left panel)", "Retreat from Marignano (right panel)". 2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser and subsequent Expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele. He was born into an impoverished family in Bern, Switzerland in 1853. His entire family succumbed to tuberculosis, and he was orphaned by the age of 13, the only surviving child among his 13 siblings. In the absence of family, the influence and guidance which his art instructors provided Hodler was foundational and profound. Hodler began formal studies in 1872 at the Geneva School of Design. Under Barthelemy Menn, Hodler was drawn to the ordered beauty of Euclidian geometry and Durer’s fundamentals of human proportion that proved to be guiding principles informing his art throughout his life. By the 1880s, Hodler began to enjoy some recognition for his work which put him on a new path towards stability. Remaining in Geneva, he became assistant to the well-known muralist, Edouard Castres. Following his first solo show in 1885, Hodler’s work took on a Symbolist quality. He frequently associated with a group of Swiss Symbolist...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

Henri DeGroux (1866-1930) was a Belgian Symbolist painter, sculptor and lithographer. He was known for his allegorical, religious and historical subject matter. He became an inspired...

after KOLOMAN MOSER (1868-1918) 5TH SECESSION EXHIBITION POSTER, 1899, (In Mascha, no. 11) A pivotal figure in early-20th century Austrian ...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art...

Henri DeGroux (1866-1930) was a Belgian Symbolist painter, sculptor and lithographer. He was known for his allegorical, religious and historical subject matter. He became an inspired...

Henri Matisse Jeune Polonaise 1917/18 Etching on Chine appliqué on wove paper, Edition of 15 Paper size: 38 x 28.5 cms (15 x 11 1/4 ins) Plate size: 18 x 12.7 cms (7 x 5 ins) HM16662

Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), By the Sea (aka Idyll), soft ground etching and aquatint, 1919, signed in pencil lower right. Reference: Czestochowski 72, fourth state (of 5; see disc...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans...

Henri DeGroux (1866-1930) was a Belgian Symbolist painter, sculptor and lithographer. He was known for his allegorical, religious and historical subject matter. He became an inspired...

Bacon, Peggy (American, 1895-1987). ICE CREAM. Flint 6. Drypoint, 1918. Edition size not known, but likely very small. Titled "Ice Cream," dated "Nov. 19...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser...

This etching with aquatint was created by French printmaker Manuel Robbe. Robbe’s innovative techniques, along with his sense of color harmony and his choice of subjects: stylish wom...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art...

"French Air Show with Remarque of Head of Pilot" is an original lithograph and stencil print by Marguerite Montaut (GAMY). It depicts an early airplane flying above a crowd of specta...

Drypoint and aquatint (brown ink) on cream paper. Signed in pencil on the lower right margin. Titled and numbered in pencil on the lower left margin. Edition of 25 prints. From the s...

The Dance of Death. 1914-1918. 1921. Portfolio of 7 etchings with drypoint. Sheet: 18 1/2 x 15 1/2. Edition 100. Title page annotated in ink by the arti...

Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), Tartessians, soft ground etching with aquatint, 1919-20, signed in pencil lower right. Reference: Czestochowski 96, second state (of 2), total printing ...

On the Roof Garden. 1919. Mezzotint. Leicester Galleries 53, Guichard 32. 8 1/4 x 4 5/8. Edition 50. New York set. A richly inked impression printed on laid...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser...

Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), Against Green (also Three Figure Composition, Figures Against Green), soft ground etching and aquatint, 1918, signed in pencil lower right; also titled ...

Walter Schnackenberg’s style changed several times during his long and successful career. Having studied in Munich, the artist traveled often to Paris where he fell under the spell o...

This artwork titled, Les Otages Civils, 1916 is an original lithograph on Japan paper by Swiss/French artist Theophile Alexandre Steinlen, 1859-1923. It is signed and numbered out of...

Evakuierte in Ostgaliezien ("Evacuation in East Galicia") is an original color lithograph on paper realized by Oskar Laske in 1916. Printed by k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei Wien / A...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser and subsequent Expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele. He was born into an impoverished family in Bern, Switzerland in 1853. His entire family succumbed to tuberculosis, and he was orphaned by the age of 13, the only surviving child among his 13 siblings. In the absence of family, the influence and guidance which his art instructors provided Hodler was foundational and profound. Hodler began formal studies in 1872 at the Geneva School of Design. Under Barthelemy Menn, Hodler was drawn to the ordered beauty of Euclidian geometry and Durer’s fundamentals of human proportion that proved to be guiding principles informing his art throughout his life. By the 1880s, Hodler began to enjoy some recognition for his work which put him on a new path towards stability. Remaining in Geneva, he became assistant to the well-known muralist, Edouard Castres. Following his first solo show in 1885, Hodler’s work took on a Symbolist quality. He frequently associated with a group of Swiss Symbolist...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans...

"Les Matelassiers (The Mattress Makers)" is an original etching by Auguste Brouet. It depicts people creating a mattress outside. The artist signed the...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser and subsequent Expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele. He was born into an impoverished family in Bern, Switzerland in 1853. His entire family succumbed to tuberculosis, and he was orphaned by the age of 13, the only surviving child among his 13 siblings. In the absence of family, the influence and guidance which his art instructors provided Hodler was foundational and profound. Hodler began formal studies in 1872 at the Geneva School of Design. Under Barthelemy Menn, Hodler was drawn to the ordered beauty of Euclidian geometry and Durer’s fundamentals of human proportion that proved to be guiding principles informing his art throughout his life. By the 1880s, Hodler began to enjoy some recognition for his work which put him on a new path towards stability. Remaining in Geneva, he became assistant to the well-known muralist, Edouard Castres. Following his first solo show in 1885, Hodler’s work took on a Symbolist quality. He frequently associated with a group of Swiss Symbolist...

Arthur B. Davies (1862-1928), Sea Maidens (or, Sunshine; Girls on the Beach), soft ground etching and aquatint, 1919, signed in pencil lower right. Reference: Czestochoski 79, second...

Jerome Myers (1867-1940), Children in Mulberry Street, c. 1910, soft ground etching and plate tone, signed in pencil lower right. In good condition (apart from weakening at platemark...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans...

This World War I poster, featuring Uncle Sam, was printed by Meisenheimer-Milwaukee and was sponsored by the Woman's Liberty Loan Committee. The ar...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser and subsequent Expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele. He was born into an impoverished family in Bern, Switzerland in 1853. His entire family succumbed to tuberculosis, and he was orphaned by the age of 13, the only surviving child among his 13 siblings. In the absence of family, the influence and guidance which his art instructors provided Hodler was foundational and profound. Hodler began formal studies in 1872 at the Geneva School of Design. Under Barthelemy Menn, Hodler was drawn to the ordered beauty of Euclidian geometry and Durer’s fundamentals of human proportion that proved to be guiding principles informing his art throughout his life. By the 1880s, Hodler began to enjoy some recognition for his work which put him on a new path towards stability. Remaining in Geneva, he became assistant to the well-known muralist, Edouard Castres. Following his first solo show in 1885, Hodler’s work took on a Symbolist quality. He frequently associated with a group of Swiss Symbolist...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser and subsequent Expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele. He was born into an impoverished family in Bern, Switzerland in 1853. His entire family succumbed to tuberculosis, and he was orphaned by the age of 13, the only surviving child among his 13 siblings. In the absence of family, the influence and guidance which his art instructors provided Hodler was foundational and profound. Hodler began formal studies in 1872 at the Geneva School of Design. Under Barthelemy Menn, Hodler was drawn to the ordered beauty of Euclidian geometry and Durer’s fundamentals of human proportion that proved to be guiding principles informing his art throughout his life. By the 1880s, Hodler began to enjoy some recognition for his work which put him on a new path towards stability. Remaining in Geneva, he became assistant to the well-known muralist, Edouard Castres. Following his first solo show in 1885, Hodler’s work took on a Symbolist quality. He frequently associated with a group of Swiss Symbolist...

Very rare xylograph of the artist, who was considered one of the 20th Century Masters in xylography. Title and signature printed on the lower margin. Very good condition. Passepartou...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extolling his artistic merits during his lifetime to showing something of a feigned disdain- more reflective of the world political order than a true change of heart for Hodler’s work. After years of Hodler being all but a footnote in the annals of art history and generally ignored, finally, the pendulum has righted itself once again. Recent retrospective exhibitions in Europe and the United States have indicated not only a joyful rediscovery of Hodler’s art but a firm conviction that his work and world view hold particular relevance today. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is not only a collection of printed work reflecting the best of all of his painted work created up to 1914 just before the outbreak of World War I, the portfolio itself is an encapsulation of Hodler’s ethos, Parallelisme. Hodler developed his philosophy of Parallelisme as a unifying approach to art which strips away detail in search of harmony. By means of abstraction, symmetry and repetition, Hodler sought ways to depict Nature’s essence and her fundamental, universal order. He believed these universal laws governing the natural, observable world extend to the spiritual realm. Symbolist in nature with Romantic undertones, his works are equally portraits of these universal concepts and feelings governing all life as they are a visual portrait in the formal sense. Whether his subject is a solitary tree, a moment in battle, mortal fear, despair, the awe inspired by a vast mountain range, a tender moment or even the collective conviction in a belief, Hodler unveils this guiding principle of Parallelisme. Several aspects of Hodler’s portfolio reinforce his tenets of Parallelisme. The Table of Contents clearly preferences a harmonious design over detail. The two columns, consisting of twenty lines each, list the images by order of appearance using their German titles. The abbreviated titles are somewhat cryptic in that they obscure the identities of the sitters. Like the image Hodler presents, they are distillations of the sitter without any extraneous details. This shortening was also done in an effort to maintain a harmonious symmetry of the Table of Contents, themselves, and keep titles to a one-line limit. The twenty-fourth title: “Bildnis des Schweizerischen Gesandten C.” was so long, even with abbreviation, that it required two lines; so, for the sake of maintaining symmetry, the fortieth title: “Bauernmadchen” was omitted from the list. This explains why the images are not numbered. Hodler’s reasoning is not purely esoteric. Symmetry and pattern reach beyond mere formal design principles. Finding sameness and imposing it over disorder goes to the root of Hodler’s identity and his art. A Swiss native, Hodler was bi-lingual and spoke German and French. Each printed image, even number forty, have titles in both of Hodler’s languages. Certainly, there was a market for Hodler’s work among francophones and this inclusion may have been a polite gesture to that end; however, this is the only place in the portfolio which includes French. With German titles at the lower left of each image, Hodler’s name at bottom center and corresponding French titles at the lower right of each image, there is a harmony and symmetry woven into all aspects of the portfolio. This holds true for the page design, as it applies to each printed image and as it describes the Swiss artist himself. Seen in this light, Hodler’s portfolio of printed work is the epitome of Hodler’s Parallelisme. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS is also one of the most significant documents to best tell the story of how Hodler, from Switzerland, became caught between political cross-hairs and how the changing tides of nations directly impacted the artist during his lifetime as well as the accessibility of his art for generations to come. The Munich-based publisher of the portfolio, R. Piper & Co., Verlag, plays a crucial role in this story. Publishing on a wide range of subjects from philosophy and world religion to music, literature and the visual arts; the publisher’s breadth of inquiry within any one genre was equal in scope. Their marketing strategy to publish multiple works on Hodler offers great insight as to what a hot commodity Hodler was at that time. R.Piper & Co.’s Almanach, which they published in 1914 in commemoration of their first ten years in business, clearly illustrates the rapid succession- strategically calculated for achieving the deepest and broadest impact - in which they released three works on Hodler to hit the market by the close of 1914. DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was their premier publication. It preceded C.A. Loosli’s Die Zeichnungen Ferdinand Hodlers, a print portfolio after 50 drawings by Hodler which was released in Autumn of 1914 at the mid-level price-point of 75-150 Marks; and a third less expensive collection of prints after original works by Hodler, which had not been included in either of the first two portfolios, was released at the end of that year entitled Ferdinand Hodler by Dr. Ewald Bender. The title and timing of DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS' debut leaves little doubt as to the connection it has with another avant-garde portfolio of art prints, Das Werk Gustav Klimts, released in 5 installments from 1908 -1914 by Galerie Miethke in Vienna. Hodler, himself, was involved in Klimt’s ground-breaking project. As the owner of Klimt’s 1901 painting, “Judith with the Head of Holifernes” which appears as the ninth collotype print in the second installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts, Hodler was obliged to grant access of the painting to the art printers in Vienna for them to create the collotype sometime before 1908. Hodler had been previously invited in 1904 to take part in what would be the last exhibition of the Vienna Secession before Klimt and others associated with Galerie Miethke broke away. In an interview that same year, Hodler indicated that he respected and was impressed by Klimt. Hodler’s esteem for Klimt went beyond the art itself; he emulated Klimt’s method aimed at increasing his market reach and appeal to a wider audience by creating a print portfolio of his painted work. By 1914, Hodler and his publisher had the benefit of hindsight to learn from Klimt’s Das Werk publication. Responding to the sluggish sales of Klimt’s expensive endeavor, Hodler’s publisher devised the same diversified 1-2-3 strategy for selling Hodler’s Das Werk portfolio as they did with regards to all three works on Hodler they published that year. For their premium tier of DAS WERKS FERDINAND HODLERS, R. Piper & Co. issued an exclusive Museum quality edition of 15 examples on which Hodler signed each page. At a cost of 600 Marks, this was generally on par with Klimt’s asking price of 600 Kronen for his Das Werk portfolio. A middle-tiered Preferred edition of 30, costing somewhat less and with Hodler’s signature only on the Title Page, was also available. The General edition, targeting the largest audience with its much more affordable price of 150 Marks, is distinguishable by its smaller size. Rather than use the subscription format Miethke had chosen for Klimt’s portfolios which proved to have had its challenges, R. Piper & Co. employed a different strategy. In addition to instantly gratifying the buyer with all 40 of the prints comprising DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS and the choice among three price points, they advertised in German journals a fourth possibility of ordering single prints from them directly. These printed images are easily discernible from the three complete folio editions. The paper size of the single purchased images is of the larger format like the Museum and Preferred editions, measuring 65 h x 50 w cm; however, the paper itself is the same copper print paper used in the General edition and then mounted on poster board. The publishing house positioned itself to be a direct retailer of Hodler’s art. They astutely recognized the potential for profitability and the importance, therefore, of having proprietary control over his graphic works. R. Piper & Co. owned the exclusive printing rights to Hodler’s best work found in their three publications dating from 1914. That same year, a competing publication out of Weimar entitled Ferdinand Hodler: Ein Deutungsversuch von Hans Muhlestein appeared. Its author, a young scholar, expressed his frustration with the limited availability of printable work by Hodler. In his Author’s Note on page 19, dated Easter, 1914, Muhlestein confirms that the publisher of Hodler’s three works from that same year owned the exclusive reproductive rights to Hodler’s printed original work. He goes further to explain that even after offering to pay to use certain of those images in his book, the publisher refused. Clearly, a lot of jockeying for position in what was perceived as a hot market was occurring in 1914. Instead, their timing couldn’t have been more ill-fated, and what began with such high hopes suddenly found a much different market amid a hostile climate. The onset of WWI directly impacted sales. Many, including Ferdinand Hodler, publicly protested the September invasion by Germany of France in which the Reims Cathedral, re-built in the 13th century, was shelled, destroying priceless stained glass and statuary and burning off the iron roof and badly damaging its wooden interior. Thomas Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute describes how the bombing of Reims Cathedral triggered blindingly powerful and deeply-felt ultra-nationalistic responses: “The event profoundly shocked French intellectuals, who for the most part had an intense admiration for German literature, music and art. By relying on press accounts and abstracting from the visual propagandistic content, they were unable to interpret the siege of Reims without turning away from German culture in disgust. Similarly, the German intelligentsia and bourgeoisie were also shocked to find themselves described as vandals and barbarians. Ninety-three writers, scientists, university professors, and artists signed a protest, directed against the French insults, that defended the actions of the German army.” In similar fashion, a flurry of open letters published in German newspapers and journals as well as telegrams and postcards sent directly to Hodler following his outcry in support of Reims reflected the collectively critical reaction to Hodler’s position. Loosli documents that among the list of telegrams Hodler received was one from none other than his publisher in Germany, R.Piper & Co. Allegiances were questioned. The market for Hodler in Germany immediately softened. Matters worsened for the publisher beyond the German backlash to Hodler and his loss of appeal in the home market; with the war in full swing until 1918, there was little chance a German publisher would have much interest coming from outside of Germany and Austria. Following the war and Hodler’s death in 1918, the economy in Germany continued to spiral out and just 5 years later, hyper-inflation had rendered its currency worthless vis-a-vis its value in the pre-war years. Like the economy, Hodler’s reputation was slow to find currency in these difficult times. Even many French art fans had turned sour on Hodler as they considered his long-standing relationship in German and Austrian art circles. Thus, the portfolio’s rarity in Hodler’s lifetime and, consequently, the availability of these printed images from DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS since his death has been scarce. In many ways, Hodler and his portfolios were casualties of war. Thwarted from their intended purpose of reaching a wide audience and show-casing Parallelisme, Hodler’s unique approach to art, this important, undated work has been both elusive and shrouded in mystery. Perhaps DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS was left undated as a means of affirming the timelessness of Hodler’s art. Digging back into the past, Hodler’s contemporaries, like R. Piper, C.A. Loosli and Hans Muhlestein, indeed provide the keys to unequivocally clarify what has largely been mired in obscurity. Just after Hodler’s death, the May, 1918 issue of the Burlington Review ran a small column which opined hope for better access to R.Piper & Co.’s DAS WERK FERDINAND HODLERS; 100 years later, it is finally possible. Hodler’s voice rings out through these printed works. Once more, his modern approach to depicting portraits, landscapes and grand scale scenes of Swiss history speak to us of what is universal. Engaging with any one of these images is the chance to connect to Hodler’s vision and his world view- weltanschauung in German, vision du monde in French- however one expresses these concepts through language, its message embedded in his work is the same: “We differ from one another, but we are like each other even more. What unifies us is greater and more powerful than what divides us.” Today, Hodler’s art couldn’t be more timely. FERDINAND HODLER (SWISS, 1853-1918) explored Parallelisme through figurative poses evocative of music, dance and ritual. His images of sex, night, desertion and death as well as his many landscapes exploring the universal longing for harmony with Nature are unique and important works embodying a Symbolist paradigm. Truly a Modern Master, Hodler’s influence can be felt in the work of Gustav Klimt and Kolomon Moser and subsequent Expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele. He was born into an impoverished family in Bern, Switzerland in 1853. His entire family succumbed to tuberculosis, and he was orphaned by the age of 13, the only surviving child among his 13 siblings. In the absence of family, the influence and guidance which his art instructors provided Hodler was foundational and profound. Hodler began formal studies in 1872 at the Geneva School of Design. Under Barthelemy Menn, Hodler was drawn to the ordered beauty of Euclidian geometry and Durer’s fundamentals of human proportion that proved to be guiding principles informing his art throughout his life. By the 1880s, Hodler began to enjoy some recognition for his work which put him on a new path towards stability. Remaining in Geneva, he became assistant to the well-known muralist, Edouard Castres. Following his first solo show in 1885, Hodler’s work took on a Symbolist quality. He frequently associated with a group of Swiss Symbolist...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...

2018 marks the centenary anniversary of Ferdinand Hodler’s death. In that 100 years time, the art world’s esteem of this important artist has proved fickle. It has shifted from extol...