Unter den Linden with a view of Brandenburger Tor

Details

With a photo expertise by Dr. Sibylle Groß, Berlin, dated 17.10.2014 and detailed documentation (copy); this pastel will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of works by Lesser Ury. Provenance: Weinmüller, Munich 19./20.3.1969, lot 1441, with ill. Plate 101; private collection, Berlin; private collection, Hessen; Grisebach, Berlin 27.11.2014, lot 3; private collection, Berlin.

Description

• Ury’s street scenes were already highly sought-after among collectors and other artists during his lifetime
• This work shows the view of Brandenburg Gate seen from WiIhelmstraße
• The popularity of this motif at the time led to the creation of various versions

Dr Sibylle Groß writes in her expertise of 17 October 2014: “Even during his lifetime, Lesser Ury’s street views were in great demand among artists and collectors. During the founding years, the western part of the boulevard Unter den Linden was transformed from an elegant residential street into a lively metropolitan business area, a promenade with hotels, restaurants, cafés, banks, agencies, shops and magnificent arcades, including the Kaisergalerie, Café Bauer, Konditorei Kranzler, the Dressel and Hiller restaurants and the Habelschen Weinstuben. A number of works by Lesser Ury are known that depict the view of the Brandenburg Gate as seen from the east.” Dominik Barthmann writes in his catalogue contribution to the exhibition “Das Brandenburger Tor 1791-1991”, Berlin 1991: “(If) the Brandenburg Gate recurs again and again in Lesser Ury’s work, these depictions do not differ significantly from his other street pictures. The Brandenburg Gate is not treated any differently as a motif than the gatehouses between Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz or the Victory Column on Königsplatz. These buildings function less as landmarks than as symbols of the city structure, which in combination with the ‘anonymous’ pictorial elements of light and colour, represented by the reflections on the rain-soaked asphalt, the steam of a locomotive or the glitter of the night lights, exude a metropolitan flair.” Dr Sibylle Groß dates the pastel to the late 1920s. It shows the view of the Brandenburg Gate at the level of Wilhelmstrasse, a favourite motif of Ury’s that was highly sought after by collectors.