BAUMEISTER, WILLI
Stuttgart 1889 - 1955

Title: Mit dem Ungeheuer Chumbaba.
Date: 1947.
Technique: Oil, synthetic resin, putty and coloured chalk on fibre.
Measurement: 44 x 53cm.
Notation: Signed and dated upper right: Baumeister 4.47. Additionally on verso illegibly inscribed and signed.
Frame/Pedestal: Craftman's frame.


Provenance:
- Dr Gertz Collection, Karlsruhe
- Maria Tannenbaum Collection, New York
- Galerie Gunzenhauser, Munich
- Private collection Düsseldorf
- Private collection North Rhine-Westphalia

Exhibitions:
- Graphisches Kabinett Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner, Bremen 1973

Literature:
- Beye, Peter/Baumeister, Felicitas: Willi Baumeister - Werkkatalog der Gemälde II, Ostfildern Ruit 2002, cat. rais. no. 1176, ill.
- Grohmann, Will: Willi Baumann - Life and Work, Cologne 1963, cat. rais. no. 849, ill.
- Exhib. cat. Willi Baumeister - Paintings and Drawings from the Years 1909-1955, Graphisches Kabinett Kunsthandel Wolfgang Werner, Bremen 1973, cat. no. 14

- Relief painting on the theme of the Gilgamesh Epic, a Samian tale (2,600 BC)
- The symbolic, archaic forms and figures, the earthy tones and the relief-like structure are characteristic of Baumeister's pictorial invention of the immediate post-war period
- The Epic of Gilgamesh is significant for Baumeister as a parable of human life.