MAX PECHSTEIN

(1881-1955)

Bildnis Charlotte Cuhrt

Footnotes

Provenance
Max Cuhrt Collection, Berlin (commissioned from the artist in 1910).
Private collection, Germany (by descent from the above).
Private collection, Europe (acquired from the above in 2008).
Anon. sale, Ketterer, Munich, 11-13 June 2015, lot 221.
Private collection, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale).

Exhibited
Berlin, Galerie Maximilian Macht, Neue Secession, III. Ausstellung, February - April 1911, no. 33 (titled 'Bildnis L.C.').
Vienna, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, 2009-2014 (on loan).

Literature
J. Sievers, 'Die Neue Sezession in Berlin', in Der Cicerone, no. 3, 1911, p. 178.
A. Soika, Max Pechstein, Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde, Vol. I, 1905-1918, Munich, 2011, no. 1910/62 (illustrated p. 275).
A. Soika, 'Max Pechstein's Rahmen', in Unzertrennlich, Rahmen und Bilder der Brücke-Künstler, exh. cat., Berlin, 2020, pp. 430-431 (illustrated p. 431).

Uniting his dynamic Expressionistic style with the luxurious design and architecture of pre-war Berlin, Max Pechstein's Bildnis Charlotte Cuhrt stands as a testament to familial love, creative collaboration, and a city at the precipice of artistic revolution. In 1910, Berlin was in a state of flux. Having recently become the capital of the newly unified Germany in 1871, the city held an aura of optimism and ambition, as booming innovations in science, medicine and technology brought with it a rapidly growing population and economy. New buildings in a grandiose, Neoclassical style sprung up in Berlin's affluent neighbourhoods, while participants of the city's vibrant nightlife enjoyed opportunities to revel, re-identify, and exchange ideas with Berlin's coterie of avant-garde thinkers. This burgeoning Weltstadt ('World City') – thriving before the decades of war and catastrophe that would soon take hold – was therefore a metropolis of contradictions, one in which the young Max Pechstein found his footing as a stalwart of Expressionism and its subgroups.

Having recently completed his studies at the Royal Art Academy in Dresden, Pechstein met the artist Erich Heckel in 1906, who was captivated by the vitality and chromatic intensity of Pechstein's works. Heckel invited Pechstein to join Die Brücke ('The Bridge'), a newly established collective of young German artists seeking to establish links between the primordial and primitive on one hand and the conceptual and radical on the other. Together with his energetic peers – among them Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde – Pechstein's creative experiments came to define Expressionism, a fluid term denoting the depiction of intense emotion through non-naturalistic forms and highly saturated colours. In this, Die Brücke were directly influenced by the Fauves ('Wild Beasts'), a movement catalysed by the shocking experiments in colour and form by Henri Matisse, André Derain and other members. Pechstein was first exposed to Fauve art in 1908 at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, thence forming a friendship with Kees van Dongen, whose mastery as a colourist further liberated Pechstein and Die Brücke's emphases on chromatic supremacy.

In 1906, the young Pechstein – then enjoying the first blushes of artistic success – also drew the attention of the architect Bruno Schneidereit, who saw his works at the Third German Decorative Arts Exhibition in Dresden. Following this meeting was a series of fruitful collaborations between Pechstein and Schneidereit, within which Pechstein would create designs to accompany Schneidereit's plans for opulent apartment buildings in Berlin's wealthy neighbourhoods. Pechstein in turn completed a series of portraits of the architect: Männerbildnis – Bruno Schneidereit (The Courtauld Gallery, London) echoes the vigorous handling and bold palette of Bildnis Charlotte Cuhrt. Through his friendship with Schneidereit, Pechstein was introduced to Max Cuhrt, a magistrate secretary who with Schneidereit became one of Pechstein's foremost patrons. With Pechstein's new studio space in a Schneidereit-designed building in Charlottenburg, and the financial backing of these two benefactors, Pechstein was given the means through which to fully delineate his highly influential style.

Bildnis Charlotte Cuhrt, an exquisite full-length portrait depicting Max Cuhrt's daughter, was commissioned at the height of Pechstein's involvement with Die Brücke. A symphony of vibrant, seductive colour fields and dynamic brushwork, the portrait truly exemplifies Pechstein's proficiency as a colourist, one who deftly juxtaposes complementary and opposing tones to conjure up emotive tension. Looking out earnestly with the slightest hint of a smile, Charlotte Cuhrt radiates with the optimism and naïveté of youth. The crimson of her dress bleeds out into the rich carpet, whose striking yellows and greens – favoured tones of the Fauves and the Expressionists – are mirrored in her blonde hair, as well as the chair and the wardrobe beyond. The arch-like structure of the picture was formatted so that the portrait could be affixed to a Schneidereit-designed piece of furniture in the family's Berlin apartment. Standing alone, however, this shape imparts a certain spiritual intensity, framing Charlotte within a domestic altar. The portrait thereby stands a statement of utmost devotion to familial love and the beauty of youthful innocence.

In his designs for the Cuhrt family's apartment, Schneidereit's aim was to create a spectacular Gesamtkunstwerk, or total sensory artwork. A foundational concept appearing across many Modernist movements – from Art Nouveau to Arts and Crafts – this design goal was espoused by the Wiener Werkstätte ('Vienna Workshop'), who encouraged collaborations between furniture and interior designers with fine artists and architects. Aesthetic harmony between all facets of a building – its accessories, furnishings, textiles, wallpaper and architectural plans – took hold in palaces, villas and government buildings across twentieth century Europe. In the present work, Schneidereit's architectural endeavours are illustrated in the grand, Neoclassical wardrobe behind Charlotte, as the exterior of the home becomes inseparable from its interior. Furthermore, this element generates an off-centre caesura, as the portrait's asymmetrical composition highlights not just the sitter but the design elements of the home with a strictly Modern sensitivity. The blank yet vivid green wall holds as much dramatic force as the carpet, wardrobe and protagonist.

The summer of 1910 was a particularly productive period for Pechstein, especially concerning his depiction of human bodies and psychological states. Sunning by the lakes of Moritzburg near Dresden with his friends Heckel and Kirchner, Pechstein completed a range of nudes and portraits of the people he met there, relishing the fact that they were not professional models who were constrained by habitual studio poses. In harmony with their surroundings, the three Die Brücke artists traded techniques and philosophies that culminated in some of their most raw and intense masterworks. In Pechstein's 1910 painting, Mädchen auf grünem Sofa mit Katze (Museum Ludwig, Germany), Pechstein captures the sitter Marzella Sprentzel's gentle innocence as she lounges, her gaze averted in boredom or abandon. Like Charlotte Cuhrt, she is enveloped within her domestic furnishings, as the loaded green and blue brushstrokes of her dress and socks materialise in Pechstein's rendering of the sofa and carpet.

1910 also saw Pechstein founding and becoming president of the Neue Secession, a movement of Expressionist artists formed in reaction to the categorical rejection of their art from the 1910 Exhibition of the Berlin Secession. The Neue Secession united Die Brücke artists with their counterparts from Munich, who would later go on to form Der Blaue Reiter ('The Blue Rider'), of which Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc were formative members. Die Brücke would ultimately become a short-lived movement, as the harsh realities of Berlin – a feature that first drew the group together within communal studios and living spaces, wherein they ruminated on the alienation of Modern urban life – ironically pushed them to forge individual paths.

The stunningly intimate Bildnis Charlotte Cuhrt celebrates the bonds between sitter, artist, patron and collaborator, conjoining the family – quite literally – with their illustrious home. Indeed, Pechstein had previously completed a portrait of Cuhrt's wife in an octagonal shape, intended for a Schneidereit-designed pattern of wall panels for the family's Berlin apartment. Before executing the present work, Pechstein created a series of lithographs of Charlotte, followed by a chalk and ink sketch which would become a preparatory drawing for her grand portrait. The link between these families was so strong that Charlotte would go on to marry Schneidereit's cousin, whose portrait Pechstein also painted in 1917. Fittingly, the treasured Bildnis Charlotte Cuhrt remained in the family's collection for almost a century, after which it was displayed on loan at the Galerie Belvedere in Vienna from 2009-2014. A rarity for Expressionist paintings, this work is currently offered with both a contemporary frame and the original altar-like frame constructed by Schneidereit himself.