Figur auf grauem Grund. Um 1928.
Oil on canvas and tempera, laid on canvas.
Cf. von Maur G 173. 58,3 x 23,7 cm (22,9 x 9,3 in).
One of the drafts for the painting of the rotunda in Museum Folkwang, Essen.
Oskar Schlemmer's figure compositions from the later Bauhaus years are considered the artist's most sought-after works on the international auction market.
With hand-written expertise issued by Karin von Maur from 17, November 1986 (in copy). Aditionally with hand-written confirmation issued by Karin von Maur from 27 April, 1998 (in copy), with additional exhibition information and a photo confirmation from 5 March, 1998 (in copy).

PROVENANCE: Galerie Thomas, Munich (2001).
Private collection Hesse (since 2001, acquired directly from previous owner).

EXHIBITION: Oskar Schlemmer. Der Folkwang-Zyklus. Malerei um 1930, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 11 September - 14 November, 1993 and Folkwang Museum, Essen 13 December, 1993 - 14 February, 1994, cat. no. 149a (with illu. in colors on p. 167).

After an apprenticeship in a marquetry workshop from 1905 to 1909 Oskar Schlemmer studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule as well as the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, where he became Adolf Hölzel's master pupil in 1912. He exhibited at the Gallery 'Der Sturm' in Berlin in 1919 and was invited to Weimar in 1920 by Gropius to run the sculpture department and the stage workshop at the Bauhaus. He became internationally known with the première of his 'Triadisches Ballett' in Stuttgart in 1922. His work for the Bauhaus and his preoccupation with the theatre are an important factor in his work, which deals mainly with the problematic of the figure in space. People, typically a stylised female figure, continued to be the predominant subject in his painting. Influenced by Cubism, he usually integrated this figures into geometric structures. A similar striving for abstraction is reflected in Schlemmer's steel and wire sculptures. Schlemmer spent the years 1928 to 1930 working on nine murals for a room in the Folkwang Museum in Essen.

The figure of the youngling was a central theme in Oskar Schlemmer's artistic creation. Based on his figure studies that treat the human body as a symbiosis of geometrical figures, peaking in the figures for the "Triadisches Ballett", Oskar Schlemmer developed an idealized symbolic figure that would become inherent part of his iconography. Following a commissionfrom the Folkwang Museum in Essen in 1928, his younglings correspond with the seated figures of Georg Minne's fountain, which is also in possession of the museum. For its final completion four murals by Oskar Schlemmer were originally conceived. The discovery of physicalness as an actual expression of human identitywas a common feature of modern dances of the 1920s. Unlike classic ballet, these dances emphasized physicalness and made it theprimary conveyor of expression. Oskar Schlemmer took on this movement in his works and interpreted it his very own way. This study for the murals at the Folkwang Museum is a prime example of Schlemmer's intentions. Physicalness, even though obscured, is present with its most elementary partsand is emphasized with an intendedstylization. This way the murals and their studies make for a charming contrast to the symbolist figures of Georg Minne's fountains.

After Gropius' resignation in 1929 Schlemmer also left the Bauhaus and accepted a post at the Akademie in Breslau in the same year. He was given a professorship at the Vereinigte Staatsschulen in Berlin in 1932, but the National Socialists forced him to resign again in 1933. During the War Schlemmer worked at the 'Institut für Malstoffe' in Wuppertal together with Willi Baumeister and Georg Muche. He led a secluded life at the end of his career and made the small series of eighteen mystical 'Fensterbilder' in 1942. Oskar Schlemmer was one of the most versatile artists of the 20th century. His occupation with murals, sculpture, drawing and painting show that he always strove to create a Gesamtkunstwerk. [KD].