(Berlin 1913–1951 Paris)
Le Placard, c. 1937, watercolour and ink on paper, dated, inscribed on the reverse (probably by Gréty Wols)
no. 802 Paris 1937, 30 x 37.2 cm, framed, (PS)

Certificate of authenticity:
Ewald Rathke, Frankfurt am Main, 14 April 2015

Provenance:
Grety Wols (1898-1984), Paris
Galerie Springer, Berlin, 1957
Private Collection, Switzerland
Villa Grisebach, Berlin, 28 November 2014, lot 535
Private Collection, Germany

Exhibited:
Galerie Springer, Berlin, 1957
Galerie Europe, Paris, 1961
Galerie van de Loo, Munich, 1968
Galerie Bonnier, Geneva - Stockholm, 1971
Galerie Kornfeld, Zurich, June 1973

Literature:
Laszlo Glozer, Wols Photograph, Munich 1973, p. 67 (ill.)
Shiego Chiba, L’Oeuvre de Wols, Paris 1974, p. 135
Philipp Gutbrod, Wols, Die Arbeiten auf Papier, cat. rais., Heidelberg 2003, no. A 75 (ill.)

“The present watercolour belongs to a small group of ink brush drawings with watercolour, which ought to have been created in Paris before the deportation of Wols to the detention camp in southern France at the beginning of September 1939. The fact that this watercolour was already exhibited in early 1957 in the Galerie Springer in Berlin (without information regarding size, date, or title) speaks for its authenticity. In 1959, forgeries first appeared in the Wols exhibition of the Galerie Europe in Brussels. These imitate more or less directly watercolours from the so-called stylistic phase of Art Informel of Wols, but no earlier watercolours and drawings. The characteristics of the drawing also speak for Wols’s authorship: the linking of short, wide, distinctive ink lines with fine penstrokes. The powerful ink brush traces appear spontaneous and dynamic, yet on closer inspection they allow the recognition that they were drawn in a considered and deliberate manner. Within their pathways they vary in strength, which makes them appear not rigid, but animated, as if pulsating.
The details of the composition, triangles, parallelograms, and circles, are placed in such a way that they do not overlap, just as the intersection of lines is also avoided. This is typical for the graphic method of Wols, and enables the emergence of the image to be reconstructed step by step. By all appearances, Wols began with the ink brush drawing, then added the watercolour, and finally applied linear accents with the ink pen.
Wols only used such large format paper in the early years of his career. A creation in 1937, according to the inscription on the reverse, which probably originates from Gréty Wols and was taken from her not always reliable memory, suggests itself on the grounds of the still very free development of the image structure. Since Wols almost never dated his works, precise dating always remains speculative. In any case, this watercolour was created in Paris and before his internment in September 1939.“
(Dr. Ewald Rathke, 14 April 2015).