Lot number 126 - Auction 144
KOMPOSITION (1930/1966)

OTTO FREUNDLICH 1878 Stolp - 1943 Lublin-Majdanek or Sobibor COMPOSITION (1939/1966) Polychrome mosaic; wooden frame, executed after the gouache on paper 'Composition' (1930) (WVZ 148) by the firm Puhl & Wagner, Berlin. 86 x 64 cm (f. 88 x 66 cm). Age-appropriate condition. Literature: 'Alte und Neue Kunst', Galerie Gerda Bassenge, Berlin, auction 15, 1970, no. 1100 (with ill.); Joachim Heusinger von Waldegg, 'Otto Freundlich. 1878-1943. monograph with documentation and catalogue raisonné', Cologne, 1978. WVZ 26, p. 78 and p. 154 (Fig. 93). Provenance: Galerie Gerda Bassenge, Berlin, auction 15, 1970, no. 1100; private collection Berlin. Otto Freundlich was born in 1878 in Stolp, Pomerania and probably died on 9 March 1943 in the Lublin-Majdanek concentration camp. From 1902-1904 Freundlich studied various subjects in Munich and Berlin, including art history with Heinrich Wölfflin. From 1907 he took art lessons in Berlin with Lovis Corinth, among others. A year later Freundlich travelled to Paris, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde artistic circles on Montmartre, followed by further stays in Paris from 1911 to 1914. Back in Berlin, Freundlich participated with his works in exhibitions, such as in 1909 and 1910 at the 'Neue Secession' in Berlin, in 1912 at the Cologne 'Sonderbund' exhibition and in 1913 at the First German Autumn Salon. His art always showed a proximity to applied art, such as mosaics, tapestries and stained glass. Freundlich worked in Chartres in 1914 in the stained glass workshop of Chartres Cathedral. In 1918 Freundlich became a member of the 'November Group' and organised the first Dada exhibition in Cologne in 1919 together with Max Ernst and Johannes Theodor Baargeld. Six years later Freundlich moved to Paris for good and became a member of the artists' association 'Abstraction-Création', to which he would only belong until 1934. As a result of the Nazi takeover, Freundlich's art was defamed as 'degenerate' in 1937. His sculpture 'Großer Kopf' (1912) appeared on the cover of the exhibition booklet of the Nazi show 'Degenerate Art' and was confiscated and destroyed along with other works by Freundlich. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Freundlich was initially able to escape captivity with the support of numerous artist colleagues. At the beginning of 1943, however, he was denounced and deported to the Majdanek extermination camp, where he was murdered at the age of 65.