Berlin - Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Emil Faesch (1865 Basel - 1915 Basel). Sketch of a head. Charcoal on painting cardboard, 60 x 47.5 cm (folio size), signed and dated at lower right "E. Faesch. 1888.". Minor browning. - Carved in stone - About the artwork The life-size head has an immensely present presence. This effect is due to the fact that Faesch took his cue from academic classical...

Adolph Eduard Otto von Faber du Faur (1828 Ludwigsburg - 1901 Munich). Man sitting in the studio. Watercolour painting, 43 x 27 cm (visible size), 73 x 53 cm (frame), monogrammed at lower right, estate stamp. Upper right corner neatly repaired, small tear in the wall to the left of the sitter. - Thinking about art - About the artwork The sitter, an elderly man, is seated in a studio on a pedestal reminiscent of an academy hall. The earthy, dark tones give the scene a weighty quality. The lightest tones are found in the incarnate parts of the figure, which do not stand out from the other colours of the picture, but are linked to them. As a result, the sitter's face is both part of and the highlight of the colour references in the picture. The colour of the sitter's skin is reflected in his pink coat, while his white-grey hair matches the colour of the wall next to him. This almost monochrome wall surface, in turn, is connected across the portrait to the framed picture standing on the floor, which seems to have been erased by this correspondence with the empty wall surface. Through the palette, which is positioned directly behind the sitter's head, the reference to painting, which is already given by the studio space, is explicitly linked to the sitter, who thus seems to be contemplating the question of the meaning of art. This raises the question of whether Faber Du Faur, who had become lonely in his old age, might have painted a self-portrait here in his later years. In addition to the studio setting, the sitter's explicit reference to the palette and the fact that the picture was part of his estate, the only summary elaboration of the body suggests a self-portrait, while the representation of the face is concretised with the wide-open eyes typical of a self-portrait. This concentration on the face gives the impression of the artist's melancholy introspection, captured by the palette and related to the meaning of painting, whose dark character is reinforced by the concealment of the palette hanging on the right of the picture in the light tones so characteristic of Faber Du Faur. In the course of this resignation, Faber du Faur advises his son Hans, who has also become a painter: "Promise me one thing: never move to Munich, they'll kill you here!" Whoever the sitter may be, the references to painting make the portrait a resigned self-contemplation by Faber Du Faur, focused on art. About the artist After leaving school, Otto Faber du Faur entered the service of the Württemberg army, at the same time cultivating his artistic talent. In 1851, on the recommendation of his father Christian Wilhelm, who was himself a battle painter, he spent six months in Munich as an apprentice to Alexander von Kotzebue. In 1852 he was granted a year's leave of absence from military service to study battle painting in the studio of Adolphe Yvon...

Hermann Prell (1854 Leipzig - 1922 Dresden-Loschwitz). Half-length portrait of a Pharisee, 1885. Sketch for the right-hand figure in the painting Judas Iscariot, 1886. Pencil drawing heightened with opaque white and black chalk on beige-grey wove paper (papier vélin), 34 x 27.8 cm (visible size), 52 x 45 cm (mount), signed, dated and inscribed "H. PRELL 1885 zu 'Judas'". Minor browning, collection stamp on the reverse. - In the shadow of betrayal - About the artwork This painting is the sketch for the head of the Pharisee offering the coins to Judas in one of Herrmann Prell's major works, the painting Betrayal of Judas, completed in 1886. The painting belongs to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and is illustrated in Adolf Rosenberg: Prell, Bielefeld and Leipzig 1901, p. 21 (Fig. 19). It is especially highlighted in Thieme-Becker (vol. 27, p. 376). Hermann Prell, Betrayal of Judas, 1886 The monumental head, which fills the picture and is distinguished by its ornamented robe, is almost a lost profile, which in the executed painting is justified by the Pharisee's turning towards Judas. Despite the fact that the sitter withdraws from the viewer by turning away, it was necessary to artistically elaborate the motivation for the purchase of one of Christ's disciples, which is why the drawing focuses on the expression of the face, while the 'accessories' are treated in a more summary manner. In characterising the face, Hermann Prell performs a balancing act: since the Pharisee, despite his destructive actions, is an actor in the history of salvation, the head must show a dignity appropriate to the event, but at the same time the physiognomy must also bear witness to the scheming attitude that led to the betrayal. To solve this dilemma, Prell draws on the traditional depictions of the heads of the apostles, shading the face to indicate the obdurate darkness of the spirit and moving the base of the nose slightly upwards while the mouth falls away, thus giving a physiognomic expression to the motivation of the action. The fatal drama of the betrayal is expressed in the monumentalisation of the head and in the thunderous white highlights that contrast with the darkness of the chalk. As a study, considered by the artist to be a work in itself, this drawing reveals the pictorial problems and brainstorming of monumental painting. About the artist In 1872 Prell, who was one of the most important exponents of monumental painting of his time, began studying painting with Theodor Grosse at the Dresden Academy of Art and continued with Carl Gussow at the Berlin Academy in 1876. Hans von Marées taught him in Rome in 1878. More influential on his work, however, were Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger, with whom Prell had been friends since his student days and with whom he worked together on several occasions. Prell's first major work, which established his reputation as a monumental painter, were the frescoes in the banqueting hall of the Architektenhaus in Berlin in 1881/82, commissioned by the state and depicting the different periods of architecture. Prell then went to Italy for two years to study fresco painting. Other major commissions followed. These included monumental frescoes in the town halls of Worms (1884), Hildesheim (1882-92), Gdansk (1895) and Dresden, the staircase of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau (1893/94), the throne room of the German Embassy in Rome (1896-99) and the staircase of the Albertinum in Dresden (1900-1904). From 1886 Prell taught at the academy of arts in Berlin and in 1892 he was appointed professor at the academy of arts in Dresden. His students included Osmar Schindler and Hans Unger...

The Antiquarian, 2020 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, textile...

The Archangel, 2020 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, textiles...

The Juggler, 2019 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, textiles, ...

Island for Umberto 10, 2014 Colored pencil on paper ( Signed and dated front right corner, framed) 11.6 H x 16.5 W in. 29.5 H x 42 W cm "Island for Umberto" has the literary source ...

The Amateur, 2019 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, textiles, f...

The Registrar, 2019 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, textiles...

The Origami Seller, 2019 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, tex...

The Jester in Disguise, 2019 collage on paper 11 13/16 H x 15 3/4 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of differ...

The Man Who Sees Everything, 2019 collage on paper 11 13/16 H x 15 3/4 W in. 30 H x 40 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardbo...

The Poker Player, 2019 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, texti...

Disparate III, 2014 Tempera on paper (Signed, Framed) 27 3/5 H × 39 2/5 W in. 70 H x 100 W cm On the subject of his new works the artist stated: “There is not enough orange, yellow ...