Stilleben mit Rosen und Champagnerkelch. 1919.
Color chalk and Watercolor over pencil.
Signed lower right as well as monogrammed and dated lower left. From a sketchbook leaf, left edge torn. 26,2 x 19,5 cm (10,3 x 7,6 in), the full sheet.

We are grateful to Inge Stuhr, Leipzig, for her expert advice.

Max Schwimmer's first years were coined by Expressionism, which he had taken on without prolonged preliminary development. Inspired by the works by Brücke artists, first and foremost by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Schwimmer made oil paintings, etchings and drawings as of 1919, which are characterized by a sharpness of both observation and line handling. The Berlin art critic Karl Scheffler, a contemporary and later friend of Schwimmer, said the following in appreciation of the expressive image world of the self-taught artist: "Max Schwimmer is one of Germany's most natural talents. [.] this is a natural born master of colors and a diligent auto-didactic, without systematics and theory [.]" (quote after: Max Schwimmer. Das grafische Werk, ex. cat. Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig 1975, p. 9). [JS].