Ewald Mataré (1887 Aachen - 1965 Büderich) (F... Lot n° 40

Ewald Mataré (1887 Aachen - 1965 Büderich) (F). 'Finnish Horse', 1929/30, bronze, brown patina, 26,5 cm x 22 cm x 10,5 cm, signed in the casting, one of a total of 14 copies, plinth bent, partially slight superficial scratches, adhesive residues on the underside, literature: Wvz. Schilling 66b Ewald Mataré was an important German sculptor and graphic artist who first studied painting at the Art Academy in Berlin with Lovis Corinth between 1907 - 1914 and turned to sculpture within the 1920s. Woodcuts and sculptural representations of animals are among the artistic-craft techniques that Mataré particularly appreciated. He reduced the bodies of the animals to two-dimensional basic forms and met the intellectual challenge of translating the anatomy of the animal into these basic forms. The material chosen was predominantly wood, whose natural grain the artist was able to emphasize through smooth surface polishing. At this point, it must be pointed out that Mataré is not convinced of the activity description of carving - rather, it is said that he, as an artist, sculpted the animals out of a plastic thought. The artist himself describes his work on the animal figures in those years as a "princely pleasure". He elaborates on this in 1959 during a studio visit to the Institute for Scientific Film in Göttingen. Mataré describes a happy time in which he simply formed his animals out of himself, without any purpose, without any necessity. He remembers himself as a single young man who could decide for himself to go to the landscapes in the summer, to the sea, to Spiekeroog, to Sylt and to Finland. Certainly these animal representations are based on the oldest art-historical animal representations, which exist for example as wall paintings from pure earth pigments in the cave of Lascaux (France) until today. Thousands of years old relics of art that show the animal as a companion of man that is essential for survival, as a predator, as a sacred animal and as part of nature. The Finnish horse dates from 1929/1930, when the artist traveled to Finland with a few precious woods. On the spot, the sculpture was made of wood, which was then set in bronze in an intermediate casting. Ewald Mataré worked out the further abstraction until some features of the animal were not only reduced, but even disappeared. The Finnish horse can be classified even before Mataré's works were considered degenerate during National Socialism. Likewise, even before the artist turned to religiously dominated themes and urban commissions: In the years 1948-1956 he created for the city of Cologne four cathedral portals, the dove fountain at the west portal, the Gürzenich doors, the Lochner column, the mosaic at Alter Markt and other works. On the one hand, this confidence in his art to influence the cityscape honors him. But Mataré also knows about the beautiful time in which he formed his animals independently and from within himself. Ewald Mataré (1887 Aachen - 1965 Büderich) (F) 'Finnish Horse', 1929/30, bronze, brown patinated, 26,5 cm x 22 cm x 10,5 cm, signed in the cast, one of 14 copies in total, plinth bent, partially slightly scratched, underneath adhesive residues, Literature: Cat. Rais. Schilling 66b Ewald Mataré was an important German sculptor and graphic artist who initially studied painting at the Berlin Art Academy with Lovis Corinth between 1907 - 1914 and turned to sculpture within the 1920s. Woodcuts and sculptural representations of animals are among the artistic-craftsmanship techniques that Mataré particularly valued. He reduced the animals' bodies to dimensional basic forms and took up the intellectual challenge of translating the anatomy of the animal into precisely these basic forms. The material chosen was predominantly wood, the natural grain of which the artist was able to emphasise through smooth surface polishing. Here, it must be pointed out that Mataré is not convinced of the activity description of carving - rather, it is said that as an artist he sculpted the animals out of a plastic thought. The artist himself describes his work on the animal figures in those years as a ''princely pleasure''. He elaborates on this in 1959 during a studio visit of the Göttingen Institute for Scientific Film. Mataré describes a happy time in which he simply formed his animals out of himself, without any purpose, without any necessity. He remembers himself as a single young man, who could decide for himself to go out into the countryside in summer, to the sea, to Spiekeroog, to Sylt and to Finland. Certainly, these depictions of animals are leaned on the oldest art-historical depictions of animals, which are preserved to this day, for example, as wall paintings made of pure earth pigments in the cave of Lascaux (France). Thousands of years