Lot 205: Rudolf Levy

Rudolf Levy (1875 Stettin - 1944 Italien). Vase mit roten Tulpen. 1942 Oil on canvas .Thesing 230. Signed lower right.61 x 50 cm (24 x 19,6 in). Provenienz: Collection Nils Blumer (with the handwritten collector's note on the reverse).Westend Galerie, Frankfurt/Main 1982.Private collection Hesse. Together with Hans Purrmann, Rudolf Levy introduced the primacy of colour, as Henri Matisse, who cultivated it as he started out with the 'Fauves", to German painting, making it an interesting aspect that - devoid of the overly intellectual - reconquered for colour an existential right in painting. Not strictly linked to a particular form, as it was by the Expressionists, colour in the paintings of Purrmann and Levy is intoxicatingly celebrated as it is in Matisse. With economical means and deliberate neglect of extraneous painterly detail, Levy created an unparalleled visual sensuousness. [KD]In good condition, colours still fresh. Tiny colour chipping on the left of the signature. Upper right corner with small, aged, backed loss (?).