"Schmidt-Rottluff painted me sitting in a tent," wrote Else Lasker-Schüler in 1912. "My mouth is red like a thicket berry, the sky is adorned in a blue dance on my cheek, but my nose is blowing east, a war flag, and my chin is a spear, a poisoned spear.
So I sing my high song.” The Cubist-inspired oil painting, which the poet was “enchanted” because she felt recognized in its “primal horror”, comes to Wuppertal – to the city to which Lasker-Schüler’s birthplace Elberfeld belongs today .
An entrepreneur from North Rhine-Westphalia, who wishes to remain anonymous, bought the oil painting at auction in December at Ketterer in Munich for around four million euros and has now made it available to the Von der Heydt Museum as a permanent loan.
It comes from the collection of the Brücke collector Hermann Gerlinger (FAZ of January 4, 2022), which was sold in several auctions, and who had acquired it from Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, a friend of his.
From the end of January it will be on display in the museum.