Alexander Kanoldt

The German painter Alexander Kanoldt, born in Karlsruhe in 1881 and died in Berlin in 1939, combined magical realism with still lifes of ordinary objects in the early 1920s; he also painted portraits in this vein and geometricised landscapes. He studied at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts from 1906 to 1909 under Ernst Schurth and Friedrich Fehr, and moved to Munich in 1908. There he met, among others, Alexej von Jawlensky, Vassily Kandinsky, Marianne von Werefkin and Gabriele Münter, and took part in the founding of the New Munich Artists’ Association in 1909.

After serving as a reserve officer during the First World War, from 1914 to 1918, Kanoldt maintained close ties with Georg Schrimpf. Together, they represented a magical-realist variant of New Objectivity. In 1925, Kanoldt taught at the State Academy of Arts and Crafts in Breslau, where he remained until 1931; that same year, he took part in the “Neue Sachlichkeit” exhibition in Mannheim alongside Max Beckmann. Appointed professor and director of the University of the Arts Berlin, as well as a senator of the Berlin Academy of Arts, in 1933, he gave up his chair in 1936 for health reasons. In 1937, the authorities seized many of his works, which were labelled “degenerate art”.

In his still lifes of the early 1920s, potted plants, angular boxes, fruit and cups are arranged on tables. These concrete motifs characterise the magical-realist language he developed at the time. Two works dated 1921 illustrate the range of his subjects: Winter Landscape, held at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, and Still Life with Rubber Plant (Still Life III), at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. Still Life against a Blue Background, dated 1926 and measuring 103 × 65 cm, is listed at the Galerie Neue Meister of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Stilleben I, an oil on canvas from 1929 measuring 80.5 × 65.5 cm, is signed and dated on the reverse. The sale catalogue links it to number 29.4 in Michael Koch’s catalogue raisonné and lists it in two exhibitions in 1929: the exhibition of teachers at the State Academy of Arts and Crafts in Breslau, followed by the spring exhibition of the New Secession at the Glaspalast in Munich.

Works recorded at auction

Lempertz · Lot 1

Stilleben I

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Stilleben I
Öl auf Leinwand

Auction date : 2020-06-18

Published result : 62500 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 60000

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Lempertz · Lot 316

Stadtbild (Klausen)

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Stadtbild (Klausen)
Öl auf Leinwand

Auction date : 2018-06-01

Published result : 53320 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 50000

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Lempertz · Lot 309

Villa Edmond About, Zabern (Hauseingang)

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Villa Edmond About, Zabern (Hauseingang)
Öl auf Leinwand

Auction date : 2015-11-27

Published result : 37200 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 30000

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Lempertz · Lot 431

Gebirgslandschaft mit Kirche in Südtirol

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Gebirgslandschaft mit Kirche in Südtirol
Öl auf Leinwand

Auction date : 2015-11-27

Published result : 37200 EUR

Including buyer’s premium

Estimate : 25000

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