Wols

(German, 1913-1951)

Untitled
1940

Footnotes

This work is accompanied by a photo-certificate of authenticity from Dr. Ewald Rathke.

Provenance
Kay Boyle Collection, New York (acquired directly from the artist in 1941)
Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York
Beatrice Perry, Grès Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Galerie Andre Emmerich, Zurich
Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Zurich
Galerie Pudelko, Bonn
Private Collection, Europe
Galerie Pudelko, Bonn
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner circa 1999

Exhibited
New York, Betty Parsons Gallery, Wols, 1942
New York, Grace Borgenicht Gallery, Gouaches by Wols, 1959
Bonn, Galerie Pudelko, Wols: Dreißig Aquarelle und Gouachen aus den Jahren 1938 bis 1951, 1975, no. 11
Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen, Wols: Die Retrospektive, 2013, p. 112, no. 69, illustrated in colour

Literature
Philipp Gutbrod, Wols, Die Arbeiten auf Papier, vol. IV, Heidelberg 2004, n.p., no. A-207, illustrated in black and white


This watercolour is part of a larger body of work that Wols gave to the American author and journalist Kay Boyle in Cassis in spring 1941 prior to her return to the United States and that was exhibited in the Betty Parsons Gallery, New York in 1942. In the secluded isolation of Cassis, near Marseilles, Wols developed his artistic vocabulary in spite of the daily struggle to survive, following his fourteen-month internment as a German citizen living in Paris after France's declaration of war on September 3rd 1939.

By Wols' standards this watercolour is exceptionally large which allows the artist to create a generous composition and develop a narrative within this dreamlike landscape. In a very personal, almost auto-biographical depiction, it traces an inner-dialogue in a graphic reference to the Surrealistic exercises of automatic writing and drawing.

This exercise of the unconscious reflects a child-like insouciance that at a second glance is echoed by deeper and more serious self-reflective references. Symbolic details and scattered biomorphic figures slide into the very personal structure of the architectural composition.

When André Breton and Paul Eluard organized the ground-breaking show Exposition internationale du surréalisme at the Galerie Beaux Arts in Paris in 1938 it changed not only the public awareness of the movement, but had equally significant reverberations within the artistic community. It is known that of the many artists involved in the show held at the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré – Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Man Ray and Wolfgang Paalen, the latter was one of Wols' close friends during his time in Paris. Wols the auto-didactic draughtsman gained inspiration from the exhibited installations, feeding into his own pictoral language.

A Cassis, les pierres, les poissons
les rochers vus à la loupe
le sel de la mer et le ciel
m'ont fait oublier l'importance humaine
m'ont invité à tourner le dos
au chaos de nos agissements
m'ont montré l'éternité
dans les petites vagues du port
qui se répètent sans se répéter.

Wols, Dieulefit, 1944.
Wols, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henri-Pierre Roché, Werner Haftmann, En personne. Aquarelles et dessins de Wols, Paris 1963, p. 53