?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
RUDOLF BAUER (1889 - 1953, GERMAN/AMERICAN) i) Untitled, (Couple - Man with Bowler), ii), Untitled, (Prison Drawing).
i)Ink and gouache on paper. Signed, Rudolf Bauer, lower right. 450x273 mm; 17 3/4x10 3/4 inches. ii) Blue pencil on paper, c. 1939. Initialed, B, lower right. 178x178 mm; 7x7 inches.
Provenance: Estate of Rudolf Bauer; Private collection; Borghi and Company, NY; Herbert Lerner Fine Art, Boca Raton, FL; Portico New York, Inc.; Private collection.
In July 1937 Rudolf Bauer traveled to Paris for a major group exhibition, Origines et development de l'art international independant, at the Jeu de Paume. The exhibition included other luminaries of the time such as Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Leger and Miro. It is believed that, while in Paris, Bauer was warned that it was now too dangerous for a "degenerate" artist to live in Germany. He ignored the warning, returned to Berlin and was arrested several weeks later.Bauer spent about ten months in a Berlin prison. During this period he was defiant. He scavenged scraps of paper and pencils so that he could continue to draw. These drawings make up a significant body of work that are studies for future compositions that he hoped to paint when released from jail.Bauer was rescued by General Franz-Hugo von Rebay, an uncle of Hilla von Rebay (Founding Director of the Guggenheim Museum), accompanied by a suitcase of cash provided by Solomon R. Guggenheim. It is fascinating to note that, while the Nazis could not stop Bauer from making art, an "exclusive" contract from Guggenheim compelled Bauer to stop working entirely. These prison drawings therefore represent the final unfulfilled dreams of a great 20th century painter.
