23.2.06

Der Turm der blauen Pferde

This:


I would guess is a study for this:


which, not having seen it before today, I am desolated to learn, was already lost and gone before I was born, being one of those works, part of Entartete Kunst, that did not survive WW2.

A favourite, evidently, of Oz poet James McAuley, one of Ern Malley's dads.

As for the study ... don't know.

Franz Marc was killed in 1916, in WWI, three years after he made The Tower of Blue Horses.

7 comments:

BN-B said...

Hi, Martin -

Yes, that's a gorgeous painting. Its destruction as a piece of "degenrate art" is a tragedy.

The study (or forerunner) is one of a series of postcards that Marc made and sent to a friend - a poet whose name I forget, but I seem to remember that she was the wife of one of his painter friends. I'll get back to you on that.

If you don't know Marc's work, there's a great little Taschen book, very inexpensive. He was a wonderful painter.

Yours,
C

Martin Edmond said...

Thanx Chris ... yeah, I'm aware of Marc's work but I'd never seen this drawing before ... interesting that it was a postcard ... wd appreciate knowing who to ... you don't know where it is now, do you?

BN-B said...

Martin, the poet was none other than the great expressionist, Else Lasker-Schüler, who was a close friend of Marc and his wife, Maria. It's really bizzare that I'd forget that...

According to my books, the Lasker-Schüler postcards are in the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen (Bavarian Picture Gallery) in Munich.

Lasker-Schüler's correspondence with Marc was pretty great. There's an illustrated essay about their friendship/correspondence here:

https://www.stanford.edu/group/berlin/data2/CLEAN/pathways/lasker_schueler/index.html

BN-B said...

The damn link didn't come through in the comment. Google "ELSE LASKER-SCHÜLER, FRANZ MARC AND DER STURM" and you'll get it right away.

Yrs
C

BN-B said...

Oh, yeah: the painting was big: 6.5' x 4.25'. What a pity it was destroyed...

Martin Edmond said...

got that - thanx Chris. are you really going to destruct yr blog in August? no 2nd thoughts?

BN-B said...

no, not destruct, just desist, or at the very least scale way, way back after 8.21.06 - i have a huge amount of translations to finish (at least 2 dozen books and chapbooks, all but one of which i'll have to publish myself, which take a lot of time and effort) and i work a full-time job, etc.

i'm gonna leave the blog up, out of nostalgia, vanity, pride and because i put so much time into it

i'm an agitator - i have no idea how many people read my blog, but even if one young poet working toward his or her MFA or PhD stumbles across it and is intrigued by all the stuff i post, follows the links and starts thinking beyond the political an artistic limits imposed and enforced by my country's dismal educational system and cultural bureaucracies, i'll have done something useful, maybe even honorable...