The forest glows in shades of green and yellow, tree trunks stretch out in purple, while in the foreground a girl cautiously approaches two large, stork-like birds in blue. She almost seems to have sunk into an intimate tête-à-tête with one of the two. It is a veritable garden of paradise that August Macke painted there in the summer of 1914. Originally probably entitled “Child with Blue Birds”, but now recorded and known as “Girl with Blue Birds”. It is one of the last works by August Macke, who was drafted into the army at the beginning of the First World War and died a few weeks later at the age of just 27.
The Macke, which will be auctioned off by Ketterer in Munich at the beginning of June, is said to bring in two to three million euros. Comparable works are now in the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the St. Louis Art Museum. “A comparable museum work by August Macke has only been offered on the international auction market once in the last 20 years,” explains Nicola Keglevich from Ketterer Kunst. “And we know that the highest hammer prices for Macke’s paintings come from this creative period. We therefore expect August Macke to be the auction highlight in 2022.”
Macke’s painting “Marc in Tunis” was auctioned for around 4.4 million euros
In fact, according to the art market platform, Macke’s works became artprice.com traded between one and two million in the past few years. Christie’s achieved the highest bid to date for a Macke in 2000: At that time, the painting “Marc in Tunis”, which was also created in 1914, was auctioned for around 4.4 million euros. There are several reasons why the two to three million euros that Ketterer hopes for the painting “Girl with Blue Birds” are probably not underestimated, as auctioneer Robert Ketterer emphasizes.
There is of course the fact that it was one of his last works. But the year 1914 was also one of the most artistically significant years in August Macke’s work. He had just returned from a trip to Tunis with Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet. The head full of colors, shapes and light that he wanted to bring to the canvas. “It was as if he were working in a frenzy, a fever, in order to achieve as much as possible of what he had set himself as a goal,” wrote Macke’s wife Elisabeth, who later systematically took care of her husband’s estate, in her Memoirs appeared in 1962. As early as 1945, when she saw it again in the “German Art of Our Time” exhibition, she noted in her diary: “‘Child with blue birds’ alone on a wall, a resting point from which a glow and shine emanated. What a Dream world, like a childhood paradise, to which our everlasting longing is directed.”
On the back of the painting “Girl with Blue Birds” August Macke signed the picture with the year it was painted. The motif “Three women at the table” from 1912 can be seen under the pale white wash. It shows a scene with Elisabeth Macke (left).
(Photo: Evelyn Vogel/Ketterer Kunst GmbH & Co. KG)
Not only the art-historical rank of the work could be responsible for the hoped-for high hammer price. The complete provenance should also contribute to this. The picture remained in the artist’s estate until 1928. For almost 100 years, “Girl with Blue Birds” was privately owned by the family of the Krefeld silk manufacturer Erich Raemisch, who was a great collector of modern art. Another detail makes the “Girl with Blue Birds” doubly interesting in the literal sense: Macke’s composition “Drei Frauen am Table” from 1912, with Elisabeth Macke on the left, clearly visible. Which prompted Robert Ketterer to remark: “Whoever buys this picture not only buys a Macke, he also gets one for free.”