Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 3

Walter Schnackenberg
Kostume, Plakate, und Dekorationen, "Consee"

1920

About the Item

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 of the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s colorful and sensuous posters depicting theatrical and decadent subjects. Schnackenberg became a regular contributor of similar compositions to the German magazines Jugend and Simplicissimus before devoting himself to the design of stage scenery and costumes. In the artist’s theatrical work, his mastery of form, ornamentation, and Orientalism became increasingly evident. He excelled at combining fluid Art Nouveau outlines, with spiky Expressionist passages, and the postures and patterns of the mysterious East. In his later years, Schnackenberg explored the unconscious, using surreal subject matter and paler colors that plainly portrayed dreams and visions, some imbued with political connotations. His drawings, illustrations, folio prints, and posters are highly sought today for their exceedingly imaginative qualities, enchanting subject matter, and arresting use of color. SCHNACKENBERG: KOSTUME, PLAKATE UND DEKORATIONEN, a cardboard bound art book consisting of 43 prints of work by Walter Schnackenberg, 30 of which are color lithographs that are signed and some are titled and dated in the plate, as well as black and white prints and photographs with accompanying text by Oskar Bie; lithographs printed at Kunstanstalt Oskar Consee in Munich, other images printed by Gesellschaft Pick & Co. in Munich, the text and cover with color images by Schnackenberg front and verso printed by R. Oldenbourg in Munich; published by Musarion Verlag, Munich, 1920. The majority of Walter Schnackenberg’s artistic output was destroyed by bomb attacks in Munich in 1944. The highly publicized 2013 auction in New York of the recovered pre-war poster collection once belonging to German poster aficionado, Hans Sachs has reintroduced the world to Walter Schnackenberg’s graphic genius and priceless ephemeral art from a lost era. Besides the museum world, designer Karl Lagerfeld is one of the most prodigious collectors of Schnackenberg. Flipping through the pages of Kostume, Plakate und Dekorationen, it becomes quite clear that Schnackenberg’s collection is ground zero at the crossroads of early modern fashion where the cult of celebrity meets up with dance, music, theater and cabaret, film and the graphic medium. Berlin and Munich under Germany’s Weimar Republic in the first quarter of the 20th century produced just the atmosphere to feed this burgeoning industry. Rising inflation sparked a recklessness to live large for the moment and heightened a desire for escapism. An influx of Indian and East Asian dancers and musicians added to the artsy bohemian cultural mix. A new decadence and tolerance resulted. Film boldly featured provocative subject matter. Cabarets became popular venues giving rise to the demi-monde in which people from all social stations mixed more freely in a thriving underground economy and culture where there was a blurring of boundaries and of social codes. Noted art historian and cultural doyen, Oskar Bie astutely observes in his introduction to Schnackenberg’s publication that what unites the images is fantasy and advertisement. Schnackenberg uses the eye as an instrument to brilliantly construct and convey this double message. His personages never directly confront the viewer. Their eyes gaze off in the distance like those of the screenplayer and film star Hedamaria Scholz in Schnackenberg’s “Die Rodelhexe” movie poster. Their eyes follow the path of a dance composition or become a transfixed and ogling male gaze such as the iconic 1911 Odeon Casino poster. Most of all, their eyes are heavily-lidded and closed unto themselves, to an inner state, a dream, an escape, a fantasy. Whether it is to pass an hour in a cinema, an evening at a cabaret, to attend a modern dance performance or patronize a glitzy club, fantasy is what really is being sold. It is interesting to consider that all of this is sandwiched in between two commercial subjects which is essentially the bread and butter of Schnackenberg’s art book. On the first page, Schnackenberg, the artist, advertises himself. While the female face which he is shown creating takes on a double image with its shadow, suggesting the replicative nature of graphic art, there is only one Schnackenberg. The final color lithograph is a poster Schnackenberg created for Consee, the printer of Kostume, Plakate und Decorationen, who also specialized in printing business materials. In the modern age, the art of business had indeed become the business of art.
More From This SellerView All
  • Sema portfolio, 1912, "Male Nude I" Lithograph print 21/215
    By Egon Schiele
    Located in Chicago, IL
    MALE NUDE (SELF-PORTRAIT) I by Egon Schiele, 1912, a brush and ink lithograph on vellum paper made for the Munich-based artists’ association, Sema 15 Originalsteinzeichnungen portfol...
    Category

    1910s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Gerlach's Allegorien Plate #20: "Song, Love, Music, Dance" Lithograph
    By Koloman Moser
    Located in Chicago, IL
    Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art w...
    Category

    1890s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Gerlach's Allegorien Plate #35: "Love & Wine" Lithograph
    By Koloman Moser
    Located in Chicago, IL
    Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art work) by designing architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphics, and tapestries meant to coordinate every detail of an environment. His work transcended the imitative decorative arts of earlier eras and helped to define Modernism for generations to come. Moser achieved a remarkable balance between intellectual structure (often geometric) and hedonistic luxury. Collaborating with Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, the artist was an editor and active contributor to Ver Sacrum, (Sacred Spring), the journal of the Viennese Secession that was so prized for its aesthetics and high quality production that it was considered a work of art. The magazine featured drawings and designs in the Jugendstil style (Youth) along with literary contributions from distinguished writers from across Europe. It quickly disseminated both the spirit and the style of the Secession. In 1903 Moser and Hoffmann founded and led the Wiener Werkstatte (Viennese Workshop) a collective of artisans that produced elegant decorative arts items, not as industrial prototypes but for the purpose of sale to the public. The plan, as idealistic then as now, was to elevate the lives of consumers by means of beautiful and useful interior surroundings. Moser’s influence has endured throughout the century. His design sensibility is evident from the mid-century modern furniture of the 1950s and ‘60s to the psychedelic rock posters...
    Category

    1890s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Gerlach's Allegorien Plate #75: "Hunting, Fishing, Rowing, Cycling"
    By Koloman Moser
    Located in Chicago, IL
    Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art work) by designing architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphics, and tapestries meant to coordinate every detail of an environment. His work transcended the imitative decorative arts of earlier eras and helped to define Modernism for generations to come. Moser achieved a remarkable balance between intellectual structure (often geometric) and hedonistic luxury. Collaborating with Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, the artist was an editor and active contributor to Ver Sacrum, (Sacred Spring), the journal of the Viennese Secession that was so prized for its aesthetics and high quality production that it was considered a work of art. The magazine featured drawings and designs in the Jugendstil style (Youth) along with literary contributions from distinguished writers from across Europe. It quickly disseminated both the spirit and the style of the Secession. In 1903 Moser and Hoffmann founded and led the Wiener Werkstatte (Viennese Workshop) a collective of artisans that produced elegant decorative arts items, not as industrial prototypes but for the purpose of sale to the public. The plan, as idealistic then as now, was to elevate the lives of consumers by means of beautiful and useful interior surroundings. Moser’s influence has endured throughout the century. His design sensibility is evident from the mid-century modern furniture of the 1950s and ‘60s to the psychedelic rock posters...
    Category

    1890s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Gerlach's Allegorien Plate #44: "Music" Lithograph
    By Koloman Moser
    Located in Chicago, IL
    Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art work) by designing architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphics, and tapestries meant to coordinate every detail of an environment. His work transcended the imitative decorative arts of earlier eras and helped to define Modernism for generations to come. Moser achieved a remarkable balance between intellectual structure (often geometric) and hedonistic luxury. Collaborating with Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, the artist was an editor and active contributor to Ver Sacrum, (Sacred Spring), the journal of the Viennese Secession that was so prized for its aesthetics and high quality production that it was considered a work of art. The magazine featured drawings and designs in the Jugendstil style (Youth) along with literary contributions from distinguished writers from across Europe. It quickly disseminated both the spirit and the style of the Secession. In 1903 Moser and Hoffmann founded and led the Wiener Werkstatte (Viennese Workshop) a collective of artisans that produced elegant decorative arts items, not as industrial prototypes but for the purpose of sale to the public. The plan, as idealistic then as now, was to elevate the lives of consumers by means of beautiful and useful interior surroundings. Moser’s influence has endured throughout the century. His design sensibility is evident from the mid-century modern furniture of the 1950s and ‘60s to the psychedelic rock posters...
    Category

    1890s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Gerlach's Allegorien Plate #51: "Summer" Lithograph
    By Koloman Moser
    Located in Chicago, IL
    Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art w...
    Category

    1890s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

You May Also Like
  • BADENDE MANNER: (THREE MALE BATHERS AT THE SHORE)
    By Max Kaus
    Located in Portland, ME
    Kaus, Max. BADENDE MANNER: (THREE MALE BATHERS AT THE SHORE). Lithograph, c. 1924. Signed, lower left, in pencil, and numbered 6-10, further inscribed, lo...
    Category

    1920s Expressionist Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Couple dancing.
    By Rudolf Bauer
    Located in New York, NY
    Couple dancing. Lithograph printed on tan wove newsprint-type paper. Signed in pencil & in the stone. 14 3/8 x 19." Sheet Size, 19 x13" Image Size. Rudolf Bauer (18...
    Category

    1920s Brücke Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Der Polster
    By Max Kurzweil
    Located in New York, NY
    Kurzweil, Maximilian. Der Polster, 1903. Color woodcut on japon. Included as an insert in Pan. Unsigned. Framed.11 1/4 x 10 1/4. 1 Ref: Hofstatter, p. 241; Pabst, p. 154. Maximillian Kurzweil was the co-founder of the Vienna Secession in 1897 and editor and illustrator of the influential Secessionist magazine Ver Sacrum...
    Category

    Early 1900s Vienna Secession Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Armand Nakache - Original Handsigned Lithograph - Ecole de Paris
    By Armand Nakache
    Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
    Armand Nakache Original Handsigned Lithograph Dimensions: 76 x 54 cm Edition: HC XXI/XXX HandSigned and Numbered Ecole de Paris au seuil de la mutation des Arts Sentiers Editions ...
    Category

    1960s Expressionist Portrait Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Apeles Fenosa Spanish Sculptor Mourlot Lithograph Abstract Expressionist Figures
    By Apelles Fenosa
    Located in Surfside, FL
    This is from a hand signed, limited edition (edition of 125) folio or full page lithographs some having a poem verso. The individual sheets are not signed or numbered. This listing is just for the one sheet, not for the cover sheet or the signed sheet. This was printed at Mourlot in Paris, France, on velin D'Arches paper. Apel les Fenosa i Florensa (1899 - 1989) lived in Spain. Apelles Fenosa is known for Expressionist Sculpture. Artist's alternative names: Apel·les Fenosa, Apelles Fenosa Spanish Sculptor Fenosa was born in Barcelona, Spain in 1899 and as a young man worked in the studio of sculptor Enrique Casanovas where he came into contact with the ideas and adherents of the Modernist Movement and its influence in Barcelona, Paris and other European cities. In 1917 he founded together with Joan Rebull, Josep Granyer and Josep Viladomat the group The Evolutionists. He arrived in Paris in 1921. There he quickly gravitated into the Parisian avant garde artist community and became friends with Pablo Picasso, who became an early patron of his work, buying a significant number of his sculptures, and with the sculptor Max Jacob. By 1924 Fenosa was exhibiting in Paris and in his native city of Barcelona. Max Jacob wrote the preface to the catalogs of Fenosa's first Paris exhibition, and his show at the Zborowski gallery in 1928. In 1931 Fenosa was in Catalonia when the Second Spanish Republic was declared. There he remained in order to work with the anarchist movement and participate in the Republican ranks during the Spanish Civil War. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1936 and with the coming to power of the Franco Fascist regime left Spain once again to settle in Paris. In 1942, he met the painter and poet, Paul Eluard, who became a close friend. In 1944, the Comite de Liberation du Limousin (Organization for the Liberation of the Limousin) commissions a sculpture to commemorate the Nazi killings of Oradour-sur-Glane. He creates the "Monument aux Martyrs d'Oradour-sur-Glane" (Monument to the Martyrs of Oradour) presently in Limoges. From 1946 Fenosa exhibited individually or collectively in Paris, London, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Prague, New York, Tokyo, Rabat, Osaka, Casablanca, Carrara. His personal exhibition catalogs are prefaced by the most famous writers and poets of his time, including Paul Eluard, Jean Cocteau, Jules Supervielle, Josep Carner, Alexandre Cirici-Pellicer, Francis Ponge, Pablo Neruda, Michel Cournot, Roger Caillois, Salvador Espriu. He was part of a generation of Spanish and Catalan artists that included Jose Amat Pages, Ramon Pichot, Alfredo Opisso Cardona, Ramon Aguilar More, Juan Cardona Llados, Josep Miquel Serrano...
    Category

    1970s Expressionist Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • "Artiesten Winterfest, " an Original Color Lithograph by Jan Sluijters
    By Jan Sluijters
    Located in Milwaukee, WI
    "Artiesten Winterfest" is an original color lithograph poster by Jan Sluijters. It depicts a brightly colored woman with long orange hair and sunglasses ...
    Category

    Early 20th Century Expressionist Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

Recently Viewed

View All