Lot number 193 - Auction 144
'VATER RHEIN' (1962)

HANN TRIER 1915 Kaiserswerth - 1999 Castiglione della Paescaia 'FATHER RHINE' (1962) Egg tempera on canvas. 130 x 162 cm (f. 134 x 166,5 cm). Signed and dated lower left 'h Trier 62'. Verso: signed and titled verso. Minimally rubbed. Frame. Literature: Fehlemann No. 358 (p. 375), oeuvre catalogue no. 332. Exhibition: 'Hann Trier', Hamburg 1962, cat.-no. 38. Provenance: Phoenix-Rheinrohr, Düsseldorf; since then North Rhine-Westphalian corporate collection. Hann Trier's painting 'Father Rhine' from 1962 is not only an important work from his creative period, but also an art-historically significant dialogue with the painting of the same name by Max Ernst, which was created in 1953 and is part of the Kunstmuseum Basel collection. In this homage series, Trier, who was one of the formative artists of the young Federal Republic of Germany, dedicates himself to a profound examination of Ernst's surrealist legacy, in particular his imaginary landscapes. Max Ernst's 'Father Rhine', an abstract masterpiece, uses the river as a symbol of the Rhineland homeland and at the same time recalls the mythological depiction of the river god. Hann Trier translates the glazed application of paint and the flowing forms of the original into an expressive pictorial language characterised by dynamic lines and rhythmic areas of colour, which bears his characteristic signature. With his net-like composition and harmoniously interwoven elements, Trier lends the subject a new, abstract dimension that interprets the river as a pulsating lifeline. Trier's 'Father Rhine' was created during a phase in which the artist intensively explored tradition and the roots of modernism. The work also marks the end of a trilogy in which Trier reflects and transforms the motifs and techniques of Max Ernst. Alongside the two preceding paintings 'The Elephant of Celebes' (1961), auctioned at Van Ham in Cologne in 2018, and 'La Belle Jardinière' (1961), temporarily on loan to the Kunsthalle Mannheim, 'Father Rhine' takes up the regional reference that Trier also felt through his own origins in the Rhineland. This painting represents Hann Trier's ability to combine historical and personal references into a universal visual language. After the second work in the series was auctioned in Cologne in 2018, this painting now offers a rare opportunity to acquire the crowning glory of this homage - a collector's item of exceptional quality and significance.