Mann mit Zylinder (Montmartre). Um 1925.
Gouache and watercolor over Lithograph.
Signed upper right. On brownish paper. 31,5 x 40,5 cm (12,4 x 15,9 in). Sheet: 39,2 x 52,3 cm (15,4 x 20,6 in).
Presumably from the portfolio of 12 lithographs "Montmartre", published by Kiepenheuer Verlag, Potsdam.

Born in the then German town of Metz in the Lorraine, the painter Lou Albert-Lazard had a particularly intimate connection with France throughout her life, especially to its cultural metropolis Paris. Little is known about her artistic education, she worked in the Paris studio of Fernand Leger in 1912 and was in contact with Alexej Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin and the artist group of the "Blaue Reiter" in Munich, where she attended the painting school Knirr. Besides the love for Paris and the vaudeville, which is expressed in her Montmartre sheets, the love relation with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke would be of an outstanding importance for her life. In an intensive artistic exchange Rilke inspired Albert-Lazard to make numerous poems. For her love affair with the poet faced a divorce suit and henceforth was in the circle of contemporary avant-garde. In 1925 Lou Albert-Lazard had a much respected exhibition in one of Berlin’s most renowned galleries, the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, where the expressive sheets of her “Montmartre" portfolio where also shown. [DB/JS].