Walther Bötticher

Walther Bötticher belongs to German Expressionism, and his work is distinguished by a relationship with nature in which sensitive observation accords with a decorative conception of painting. Born in Hagen in 1885, he discovers Expressionism while still a secondary-school student at the city’s Museum Folkwang, notably through the works of Christian Rohlfs and Emil Nolde. A commentary on his work describes his landscapes as the product of an attention that is both fervent and constructive. In 1906, he studies at the art school in Weimar, then at the Debschitz-Schule in Munich, devoted to the applied and fine arts. Settling in Berlin in 1910, he comes into contact with Emil Nolde and the Die Brücke group, declining their invitation to become a member. He returns to Hagen the following year.

Alongside his paintings, Bötticher produces numerous prints, drawings, woodcuts and linocuts. Recurring subjects include bathers, riders and grazing cows, as well as biblical themes. Among the recorded works are Kühe auf der Weide, dated 1912, and Bußprediger, from 1913, mentioned both as a painting and a linocut. Else Lasker-Schüler erzählt Märchen is also listed as a painting. After his return to Hagen, his work is shown in solo and group exhibitions and appears in several periodicals, including Cicerone, Kunstchronik, Die Rheinlande and Xenien. He takes part in exhibitions at the Museum Folkwang in Hagen in 1911 and 1915, as well as the Sonderbund-Ausstellung in Cologne in 1912. In 1914, at a major Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, he is entrusted with the wall design for the Hagen room.

Works by Bötticher are acquired for the Moritzburg collection in Halle and are held at the Osthaus Museum Hagen, the Museum Folkwang in Essen and the Kunsthalle Mannheim. Some are also shown in 2018 at the Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt and the Max Pechstein Museum in Zwickau. Drafted at the beginning of the First World War, wounded and then sent back to the front, Bötticher dies at the Somme in 1916, aged thirty-one. In 1937, many of the artist’s works are seized from German museums during the Nazi campaign known as “Entartete Kunst”; a large part is destroyed.

Works recorded at auction

Lempertz · Lot 148

Buchenwald

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Buchenwald
Öl auf Leinwand

Auction date : 2022-06-02

Published result : 21420 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 8000

View the lot at the auction house ↗