Picture "Reading" (1928) (Unique piece)
Picture "Reading" (1928) (Unique piece)
Quick info
unique piece | signed | dated | titled | pencil drawing | framed | size 64.5 x 49 cm
Detailed description
Picture "Reading" (1928) (Unique piece)
Pencil drawing, 1928, signed, dated and titled. Motif size/sheet size 50 x 35 cm. Size in frame 64.5 x 49 cm as shown.
About Kurt Günther
Kurt Günther (*1893-1955) grew up in Gera and went to study at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts in 1913, where his fellow students included Otto Dix. During the First World War, Günther was discharged from the army in 1917 due to severe pulmonary tuberculosis. He received treatment for the disease in Davos (Switzerland), where he also met Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
Günther returned to Dresden in 1919 and continued his studies at the Academy of Art, where he was a member of Richard Müller's painting class. Günther undertook artistic experiments in Expressionism, Dadaism and Verism and was part of the Dresden Dada group. At this time, he worked closely with Otto Dix.
During the Nazi era, Günther was defamed as "degenerate" and banned from exhibiting. The artist spent the period up to the end of the Second World War in internal emigration. During this time, he mainly painted portraits of children and landscapes.
After the war, Günther was appointed professor and took part in exhibitions at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts, among others.
Kurt Günther died in Stadtroda in 1955.
Depiction of typical scenes from daily life in painting, whereby a distinction can be made between peasant, bourgeois and courtly genres.
The genre reached its peak and immense popularity in Dutch paintings of the 17th century. In the 18th century, especially in France, the courtly-galant painting became prominent while in Germany the bourgeois character was emphasised.
A one-of-a-kind or unique piece is a work of art that has been personally created by the artist. It exists only once due to the type of production (oil painting, watercolours, drawing, etc.).
In addition to the classic unique pieces, there exist the so-called "serial unique pieces". They present a series of works with the same colour, motif and technique, manually prepared by the same artist. The serial unique pieces are rooted in "serial art", a type of modern art, that aims to create an aesthetic effect through series, repetitions and variations of the same objects or themes or a system of constant and variable elements or principles.
In the history of arts, the starting point of this trend was the work "Les Meules" (1890/1891) by Claude Monet, in which for the first time a series was created that went beyond a mere group of works. The other artists, who addressed to the serial art, include Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and above all Gerhard Richter.