The photos of the lot are informative and indicative, and cannot provide a highly detailed view of the object from all angles. We recommend a careful physical inspection of the lot before bidding.
The photos of the lot are informative and indicative, and cannot provide a highly detailed view of the object from all angles. We recommend a careful physical inspection of the lot before bidding.
The place occupied by Max Herman Maxy in Romanian culture is truly privileged. A painter, a sketcher, a professor, a creator of decorative art, an initiator of a modernist movement and a museographer, Maxy was present on the artistic scene for 50 years, transforming it either through the quality and innovation of his art, or through his rigour and organisational spirit.
In his artistic career, Maxy stood out among the figures of "Romanian Art" starting 1922, when, aware of the need for change, he left for Berlin as a trained artist, initiated in the modernist trends. Maxy reached Berlin having had three individual exhibitions in Romania already, where a constructivist tendency could be noted. In Germany he met one of the members of the De Stijl movement, he knew Moholy-Nagy, I. Peri, Erich Buchholz, he made contact with modern theatre and visited the Bauhaus, in the period when it was there that the revolutionary ideas were born that would later mark modern art. He visited the modern art exhibition of Russian artists, including Malevich, Chagall, Rodcenko, in 1922, and in the same year he opened an individual exhibition at the Der STURM Gallery, after proposing the project directly to the owner of the gallery, the poet Herwarth Walden. The year spent around the school of Arthur Segal, as well as in the club house of the master from Iași, his visit at the Weimar Bauhaus and his collaboration with the Der Sturm magazine and gallery transformed the year spent in Germany into a decisive step towards the essentialisation of the general avant-garde concept. Between 1923 and 1925, the year when the magazine and movement "Integral" were born, Maxy also started and pursued his collaboration with the first Romanian avant-garde publication, "Contimporanul", established in 1922 and led by Ion Vinea and Marcel Iancu. It is in this same early period, when the artist truly empowered all his avant-garde tendencies, that Maxy organised the first constructivist exhibition in Romania, in November 1923. The unfavourable reaction of the Romanian critics and the fact that he sold no painting only enhanced the painter's artistic credos, who continued his pursuits with even more passion. The International Contimporanul Exhibition of 1924, starting the Private School of Decorative Arts, which later became the Academy of Decorative Arts, but above all, founding the magazine "Integral" in March 1925, proved that the road chosen by Maxy was the correct one. It was due to this avant-garde momentum that Maxy created for about two decades, the period of the Second World War marking the changes that occured not just in his manner, but particularly in his approach of and position in relation to universal creation.
After 1944, Maxy became a prominent representative of social realism, becoming at the same time one of the coordinators of Romanian arts after the instauration of the communist regime. He was among the militant artists, who supported the "popular democratic" regime by means of propaganda, believing in the power of expressing ideals and serving the interests of the many through his paintings. The new art required a realist orientation through its programme, for the adoption of which Maxy strayed from the vision and the manner of painting that he had had until that time.
The first years of the fifth decade of last century mark the last period in which Maxy made visual experiments, a stage where subjects were still free of the post-1944 political constraints. The 40s also mark the period when Maxy collaborate with the Barașeum Theatre, focusing on his art direction career, making decors and costumes for a few years. In 1943 he organised his last exhibition before 1944, in his own house (Calea Călărașilor 131 bis), partly due to the constraints brought about by anti-Jewish legislations.
References
Comitetul de Stat pentru Cultură și Artă, Uniunea Artiștilor Plastici, "Expoziția Retrospectivă M.H.Maxy", catalog, București, 1965 ILK, Michael, "M.H.Maxy-Artist integralist", Berlin, 2003 OPREA, Petre, "M.H.Maxy", Ed. Meridiane, București, 1974
Dimensions
width 50 cm, height 70 cm, custom 50x70
Description
oil on cardboard, signed and dated lower left "Maxy, 1943", in blue
Dating
1943
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For clarifications regarding the bidding procedure, hammer price costs, guarantee, payment, and collection terms for the winning lot, we recommend carefully reading/re-reading the Bidding Regulations.
For additional information regarding the lot and the auction, please contact the Art Consultants Department.
Detalii
The place occupied by Max Herman Maxy in Romanian culture is truly privileged. A painter, a sketcher, a professor, a creator of decorative art, an initiator of a modernist movement and a museographer, Maxy was present on the artistic scene for 50 years, transforming it either through the quality and innovation of his art, or through his rigour and organisational spirit.
In his artistic career, Maxy stood out among the figures of "Romanian Art" starting 1922, when, aware of the need for change, he left for Berlin as a trained artist, initiated in the modernist trends. Maxy reached Berlin having had three individual exhibitions in Romania already, where a constructivist tendency could be noted. In Germany he met one of the members of the De Stijl movement, he knew Moholy-Nagy, I. Peri, Erich Buchholz, he made contact with modern theatre and visited the Bauhaus, in the period when it was there that the revolutionary ideas were born that would later mark modern art. He visited the modern art exhibition of Russian artists, including Malevich, Chagall, Rodcenko, in 1922, and in the same year he opened an individual exhibition at the Der STURM Gallery, after proposing the project directly to the owner of the gallery, the poet Herwarth Walden. The year spent around the school of Arthur Segal, as well as in the club house of the master from Iași, his visit at the Weimar Bauhaus and his collaboration with the Der Sturm magazine and gallery transformed the year spent in Germany into a decisive step towards the essentialisation of the general avant-garde concept. Between 1923 and 1925, the year when the magazine and movement "Integral" were born, Maxy also started and pursued his collaboration with the first Romanian avant-garde publication, "Contimporanul", established in 1922 and led by Ion Vinea and Marcel Iancu. It is in this same early period, when the artist truly empowered all his avant-garde tendencies, that Maxy organised the first constructivist exhibition in Romania, in November 1923. The unfavourable reaction of the Romanian critics and the fact that he sold no painting only enhanced the painter's artistic credos, who continued his pursuits with even more passion. The International Contimporanul Exhibition of 1924, starting the Private School of Decorative Arts, which later became the Academy of Decorative Arts, but above all, founding the magazine "Integral" in March 1925, proved that the road chosen by Maxy was the correct one. It was due to this avant-garde momentum that Maxy created for about two decades, the period of the Second World War marking the changes that occured not just in his manner, but particularly in his approach of and position in relation to universal creation.
After 1944, Maxy became a prominent representative of social realism, becoming at the same time one of the coordinators of Romanian arts after the instauration of the communist regime. He was among the militant artists, who supported the "popular democratic" regime by means of propaganda, believing in the power of expressing ideals and serving the interests of the many through his paintings. The new art required a realist orientation through its programme, for the adoption of which Maxy strayed from the vision and the manner of painting that he had had until that time.
The first years of the fifth decade of last century mark the last period in which Maxy made visual experiments, a stage where subjects were still free of the post-1944 political constraints. The 40s also mark the period when Maxy collaborate with the Barașeum Theatre, focusing on his art direction career, making decors and costumes for a few years. In 1943 he organised his last exhibition before 1944, in his own house (Calea Călărașilor 131 bis), partly due to the constraints brought about by anti-Jewish legislations.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For clarifications regarding the bidding procedure, hammer price costs, guarantee, payment, and collection terms for the winning lot, we recommend carefully reading/re-reading the Bidding Regulations.
For additional information regarding the lot and the auction, please contact the Art Consultants Department.
References
Comitetul de Stat pentru Cultură și Artă, Uniunea Artiștilor Plastici, "Expoziția Retrospectivă M.H.Maxy", catalog, București, 1965 ILK, Michael, "M.H.Maxy-Artist integralist", Berlin, 2003 OPREA, Petre, "M.H.Maxy", Ed. Meridiane, București, 1974
Dimensions
width 50 cm, height 70 cm, custom 50x70
Description
oil on cardboard, signed and dated lower left "Maxy, 1943", in blue
