The Artist’s Wife reading
  • August Macke
  • Meschede 1887 - 1914 Perthes-les-Hurlus / France
  • The Artist’s Wife reading, 1914
  • charcoal on paper, mounted on board
  • estate stamp on the recto and verso on the mount (Lugt suppl. 1775b, with handwritten numbering with pencil KZ 8/19), inscribed, dated and titled on the mount: August Macke 1914 / Lesende Frau
  • 174 × 107 mm
Provenance:
Gallery Rudolf Probst, Mannheim
Private Collection, Southern Germany (1951-2014)
Literature:
Ursula Heiderich: August Macke Zeichnungen, Werkverzeichnis, Stuttgart 1993, no. 2628, p. 675 (no ill.)

This small study shows August Macke’s wife Elisabeth, née Gerhardt (1888-1978), hunched over while reading a large book (compare Fig. 1). They met each other in Bonn in 1903, and the daughter of a prosperous business family soon became Macke’s most important model. The pair married in 1909, and Macke created more than 200 studies and portraits of her until his early death at the beginning of World War I. Just as she was able to be a great supporter of her husband during his lifetime, she became the staunchest defender of his work after his death.

It is solely to her credit that the majority of August Macke’s oeuvre survived the chaos and destruction of World War II. According to the artist’s catalogue raisonné as well as an inscription, this study originated during more peaceful days at the couple’s retreat Hinterfingen at Lake Thun, where the Macke family moved in 1913 to escape the art scene in Bonn.