Provenance
Probably (Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser, Munich).[1] Dr. Walter Minnich [1864-1940], Montreaux; gift 1937 to the Kunstmuseum, Lucerne; (sale, Klipstein & Kornfeld, Bern, 25-26 May 1962, no. 931); London art market; private collection, Rome; [2] (Galerie Anne Abels, Cologne); sold c. 1970 to Arnold A. [1916-2014] and Joan R. [1919-2019] Saltzman, Sands Point, New York;[3] gift (partial and promised) 2000 to NGA; gift completed 2020.
[1] A seal of the Galerie Thannhauser is recorded as having been on the back of the painting, on the stretcher, when it was sold in 1962. However this seal is no longer evident.
[2] Post 1962 sale provenance according to Aya Soika, _Max Pechstein : das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde_, Munich, 2011, p. 326, repro.
[3] The Saltzmans lent the painting to the 1970 exhibition in Ithaca and Rochester.
Accession Number
2000.178.1
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 75 x 100 cm (29 1/2 x 39 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman
Tags
Painting Early Modern (1901–1950) Oil Painting Canvas German
Background & Context
Background Story
Max Pechstein (1881-1955) was a German painter known as a leading member of Die Brucke (The Bridge), the pioneering Expressionist group founded in Dresden in 1905. Summer Day from 1911 depicts a summer scene in the bold, colorful manner that distinguishes Pechstein's best work from the more angular Expressionism of his Die Brucke colleagues. The 1911 date places this in Pechstein's most productive Die Brucke period, when he was producing the bold, colorful figure paintings and landscapes that are his most accomplished works, before he left the group in 1912.
Cultural Impact
Summer Day is important in the history of German Expressionism because it demonstrates the bold, colorful manner that Pechstein brought to Die Brucke as one of its most important members. Pechstein's bold, colorful style—using vivid color and simplified forms to create a more joyful Expressionism than his Die Brucke colleagues—represents an important strand within German Expressionism, and the 1911 painting shows this joyful strand at its most characteristic, before Pechstein left the group.
Why It Matters
Summer Day is Pechstein's joyful Expressionism: a summer scene rendered in the bold, colorful manner of a leading member of Die Brucke. The 1911 painting shows the more joyful strand of German Expressionism—vivid color and simplified forms creating an optimistic alternative to the more angular Expressionism of his colleagues.
