Additional information
| Artist | Meseck |
|---|---|
| Country | German |
| Region | European |
ArtistMeseck, Felix
Artist Years1883
Artist NationalityGerman
TitleReleasing the Dove
Year1919
MediumPrint > Drypoint
DimensionsPlate: 6.6 X 8.5 inches
Description
Drypoint, signed in pencil, printed on cream laid paper, 1.2 – 2.0 inch margins. Published in the portfolio Die Sintflut (The Flood), Fritz Gurlitt Verlag, Berlin, 1919. One of 11 drypoints on the theme of the Biblical flood in an edition of 40. Fine condition. Free shipping to US address.
(bx-43)
Accession Number583992
NotesFelix Meseck was born 11 June 1883 in Danzig, Germany, and died 17 June 1955 in Holzminden, Germany. He studied at the Fine Art Academies in Berlin and Königsberg, studying painting under Ludwig Dettmann and printmaking with Heinrich Wolff. In 1926 he was appointed professor at the Weimar Academy, but was later forced out by the Nazis.
Before the First World War, in which he served at the front as an ordinary soldier, Meseck concentrated on painting; after the war he turned to printmaking, becoming especially known for his drypoints. Meseck was a member of the Berlin Secession, and contributed to leading journals such as Ganymed, as well as illustrating works by Shakespeare, Goethe, Novalis, and Brentano. Much of Felix Meseck's work was destroyed in the Red Army attack on Danzig in 1945.
Trees are a recurring motif in his art, and may bring to mind the ravaged landscapes of the First World War. There was a retrospective exhibition with catalogue at the Museum Höxter Corvey in 1987.
(source: Leicester's German Expressionist Collection)
Felix Meseck's art is a curious blend of Expressionism, Romanticism and Symbolism, with a forlorn, desolate quality at its heart. His spiky, unsettling line is the opposite of everything fluid, supple, and sensuous. Instead there is a sense of jarred nerves and watchful unease. The overriding impression is one of neurasthenia, and I would not be at all surprised to discover that Meseck suffered from shell-shock (post-traumatic stress) after his experiences in WWI. His art has that hyper-aware inability to relax. The trees that are a recurring motif in his art certainly bring to mind the ravaged landscapes of WWI. Whether depicting landscapes or symbolic groups of people, there is something in Felix Meseck's work that speaks of unreachable loss. This work was published very soon after the end of WWI, in 1919, and would certainly have carried that emotional charge for Meseck's contemporaries.
(source: adventuresintheprinttrade)
Price $450.00