New works enter the catalogue
The Carl Heidenreich Foundation is thrilled to announce a selection of paintings and works-on-paper newly included in the catalogue raisonné, which were shared with the Foundation over the past year.
Most recently, Carl Heidenreich’s granddaughter and CHF trustee Karla Lortz acquired an oil painting from Heidenreich’s years in exile in France and Spain, 1934-41. At first glance, the painting shows a cheerful scene of a horse-drawn carriage processing down a sunlit street. Trees and house enclose the composition while a number of human figures cluster behind the carriage. It’s a delightful example of his earlier work in Europe, prior to immigration.
Another interesting work comes from the collection of Jennifer Lyons, who received it from Lotte Köhler, the professor and literary executor of the Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust. The abstract piece is from 1962 and is executed in Heidenreich’s recognizable style, with layered washes of watercolor and scrims of transparent and opaque color. Reddish ochre strips divide the composition into segments beneath a final layer of white gouache.
Lastly, two works from the collection of Riggins/Pina bridge the decade between these two: the 1950s, during which Heidenreich increasingly explored abstraction, diverging from the landscapes and cityscapes he created in Europe and Martinique. In the first work, pinkish-red roofs are obscured in a maelstrom of greenery, tree trunks, yellow earth, and sky. In the second, few representational characteristics are maintained. Dramatic linear strokes tilt at a perilous angle, crossing over and weaving with other rough-hewn forms: perhaps a hurried view through a forest of reedy trees, while at the same time prefiguring the rectangular, off-kilter compositions of interior windows and city streets from Heidenreich’s Manhattan apartment.
