Walter Leistikow Lot n° 106

Walter Leistikow Grunewaldsee in the morning Around 1895-1905 Oil on canvas, relined. 53 x 79 cm. Framed. Signed in black lower right 'W. Leistikow' in black lower right. - In good, fresh condition. Provenance Horst Friese, Berlin; Galerie Bassenge, Berlin, Auction 73, 5.6.1999, lot 6634 (dated 1895); Sotheby's, London, 19th Century European Paintings, 9.4.2002, lot 72; privately owned, North Rhine-Westphalia Exhibitions Frankfurt am Main/Birmingham/Stockholm 2000 (Schirn Kunsthalle/City Museum and Art Gallery/Waldemarsudde), Seelenreich. The Development of German Symbolism 1870-1920, Cat. No. 41, with color illustrations (with shipping label on the back) The Grunewaldsee in the pine forest of Brandenburg was one of the most frequent themes in the work of the Secession painter Walter Leistikow. In the context of a revival of landscape painting around 1900, he sought his motifs in the area around Berlin and on his travels. Trained by the Norwegian painter Hans Fredrik Gude, he was initially committed to Nordic Art Nouveau. It was not until 1905 that his palette brightened and his application of paint became freer. In the painting "Grunewaldsee am Morgen" (Grunewald Lake in the Morning), the landscape is divided over a large area into three parallel planes. In the foreground is the calm surface of the lake. A dense pine forest rises on the opposite shore, reflecting in the water and revealing a yellow-orange sky in the upper left. The unusual cropping and the expressive lines were probably influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, which Leistikow discovered for himself during his stay in Paris in 1893 and whose principles he integrated into his landscape art. Bathed in the mild light at the beginning of the day, "Grunewaldsee am Morgen" is a characteristic image of Leistikow's creative period around 1900. "It is his undying merit," Max Liebermann judged, "to have found the style for depicting the melancholy charms of Berlin's surroundings. We see the lakes of the Grunewald or the Oberspree with his eyes; he taught us to see their beauty." (quoted from: Nationalgalerie Berlin. Das XX. Jahrhundert, Leipzig 2001, p. 228). A laterally reversed, otherwise almost identical view of Lake Grunewald has been in the Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin since 1898.