Mittag - Ein Dorf. Midday - A Village. by Max Pechstein, 1881-1955

Max Pechstein, 1881-1955
Scroll down for information.
Click here to return to the list.

Mittag - Ein Dorf. Midday - A Village.

Original woodcut in black ink. 1918/19. Signed in pencil. Dated 1919. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 75 impressions. Printed at the studio of Voigt, Berlin 1919. Issued by Neumann, Berlin 1919.
Ref: Fechter - Pechstein Graphic Work no W 126. Kruger Pechstein Woodcuts no 195

Excellent very rich and contrasted impression. On pale cream laid paper. Generally excellent condition; some minor nicks at the extreme outer edges of the full margins - print area and inner margins excellent. Full sheet: 20 1/8 x 24 1/2ins. Block: 12 1/2 x 15 3/4ins (317x400mm)

This item is sold.
Click here to enquire about this item.

Das Dorf - The Village- is one of the most famous sequences of prints in Pechstein?s oeuvre. Dating from just after the First War when his woodcut technique was at its peak in the compositions of this series he used the emotional contrasts of the bold cuts on the block and the starkness of the forms to express the desperation and the poverty of the village life. This impression of one of the best known images in the series is exceptionally strong in the inking and in the bold texture and clarity of the forms.

Max Pechstein was one of the original members of the Brucke circle, with Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt- Rottluff. He had already travelled in Italy and had been greatly impressed by Etruscan art, and this was linked to the growing admiration amongst his friends for the emotionalism found in primitive art. Like their counterparts in France, the Fauves, Pechstein and the Brucke painters wanted to replace the overly intellectual and refined aesthetic which had grown from Impressionism and through Symbolism with something much more simplified and direct. Colour, handling of line, and imagery were to express emotion without any intellectual compromise. It was this desire for the expression of visual emotion which led all the artists to take-up woodcut, with its stark contrasts of white and black, for it was a medium which they had already seen could be so effective in primitive art forms.