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A painting in oil, graphite and plaster with bars of color.

The painting shows two halves of a circle with a neck extending down. The left half is dark brown, a bar of narrow colored rectangles extends from the center to the left beyond the outer edge. The neck is set on a white rectangle raising it off center. A thin light brown line divides the circle. The right circle is gray with a white outline and a black edge. A gray vertical bar is set against the dividing line. A broken horizontal line extends from the top edge on the right to a straight vertical line and a curly bracket pointing right.

Gallery Text

Although never officially affiliated with the Bauhaus, Baumeister not only saw sculpture and painting, and painting and architecture, as related, but made no distinction between the fine and applied arts. The artist described his paintings from the early 1920s as originating from the wall and, a few years later, inserted such works directly into exhibition architecture. Head depicts a geometricized human head divided into two distinct halves. The neck terminates in a plaster rectangle like a platform on which a sculptural head might rest, but also refers to the wall behind it. On the left, rainbow-colored rectangles extend from the center like multicolored lenses from an eye. On the right, the graphite dashed lines originating from the crown of the head meet a vertical line marked with a bracket as if it were a measurement. Baumeister’s contemporaries welcomed his work after World War I as a kind of intuitive mathematics.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
2003.125
People
Willi Baumeister, German (Stuttgart, Germany 1889 - 1955 Stuttgart, Germany)
Title
Head
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Kopf
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1920
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/76807

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1520, Modern and Contemporary Art, Art in Germany Between the Wars
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil, graphite, and plaster on canvas
Dimensions
40.3 x 30.5 cm (15 7/8 x 12 in.)
framed: 59.4 x 49.4 x 5 cm (23 3/8 x 19 7/16 x 1 15/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: stretcher verso t.l., black ink over graphite: G. SCHLEICHER // STUTTGART - N // HERM.KURZSTR.3
  • inscription: stretcher verso t.r., black ink: [first line of inscription illegible] // "KOPF 1920 // VERZEICHNISNR.149
  • inscription: stretcher verso l.c., blue ink: [?]SACH DER // [BA]UMEISTER - // [AU]SSTELLUNG // [?]0. JAHRE" //[?]UCK ERH. // 27.2.70 // [?] Herrn // R. Geissler // [?] von // ...OF BEYE // G.S. [left side of insciption covered by frame]
  • label: stretcher verso t.r., black ink: [incribed in black ink:] SAMMLUNG // [stamped in black ink:] Gustav Schleicher // Stuttgart N // Hermann-Kurz-Str. [right side of label covered by frame]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Gustav Schleicher, Stuttgart. [Sotheby's Deutschland, Munich, "Deutsche Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts," 27 November 1992, lot 75], sold. [Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich]. Private collection, Hamburg, consigned; [Villa Grisebach, Berlin, "Auction No. 43: Selected Works," 26 May 1995, lot 60], sold; to DaimlerChrysler, Stuttgart, 1995, gift; to Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2003.

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Standard Reference Number
Beye/Baumeister 256

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of DaimlerChrysler in honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Busch-Reisinger Museum
Accession Year
2003
Object Number
2003.125
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Will Grohmann, Willi Baumeister: Life and Work, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1966), p. 266, no. 149
  • Peter Beye and Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister: Werkkatalog der Gemälde II, Hatje Cantz Verlag (Stuttgart, Germany, 2002), p. 114, no. 256
  • Peter Nisbet and Joseph Koerner, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, ed. Peter Nisbet, Harvard University Art Museums and Scala Publishers Ltd. (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2007), p. 127
  • Lynette Roth, Inventur—Art in Germany, 1943–55, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2018), pp. 241-242, fig. 1, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • Re-View: European and American Art Since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/03/2011 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 1520 Art in Germany Between the Wars (Interwar and Bauhaus), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 12/10/2018; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/05/2019 - 01/01/2050

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu