Gerhard Marcks Social Consciousness 1950 Bronze... Lot 269

Gerhard Marcks Social Consciousness 1950 Bronze sculpture Height 79 cm Marked with the artist's signature on the cast plinth at the back left and with the foundry stamp "RICH BARTH BLN MARIENDORF" and the incised copy number "II" on the plinth rim at the back left. Ex. II of three Roman, besides three Arabic numbered casts. - With beautiful dark brown patina. Rudloff 549; Gerhard Marcks work diary plaster/bronze no. 355 Provenance Galerie Nierendorf Berlin; acquired there, since then private collection Northern Germany Exhibitions Frankfurt 1956 (Kunstverein), Gerhard Marcks, cat. No. 38 with ill.; Berlin 1974 (Galerie Nierendorf), Gerhard Marcks, Cat. No. 71 with ill. Literature Collection catalogue Gerhard Marcks Foundation Bremen 1971, cat. No. 88, Fig. 43 The sculpture was created in the course of a tender for a work in larger format, which was to go to an American foundation through the mediation of the art dealer Curt Valentin, who emigrated to the USA in 1937. Thematically, it refers to the American willingness to help Germany after World War II, to the social consciousness of the American people. In addition, the bronze is a testimony to Marcks' general interest in the nature of man and his forms of behavior, within which he worked especially in his late creative period on interpersonal themes and depicted people in intimate conversation, neighbors or devoted lovers, but also pregnant women.