Karl Herrmann HAUPT
(Halle and der Saale 1904 - Berlin 1983)
Self Portrait 3 (Selbstbildnis 3)
Sold
Gouache and oil on a thin card.
Signed and dated HAUPT24 at the lower left centre.
Inscribed Bauhaus-Student Weimar 1924. / Selstbildnis 3 (farbige Fassung) / Mischtechnik auf Karton / Die Positiv-Negativ Wirkung, (1. u. 2 Fassung) / werden durch die Farbe aufgelöst. / Die Schwarz-Weiss Fassungen, (1. u. 2.) / ähneln eher einem Fotonegativ. / K. H. Haupt. Halle. a. d. S. / 1924. on a typewritten label pasted onto the reverse.
A stamp with the coat of arms of the city of Weimar pasted onto the reverse.
678 x 478 mm. (26 5/8 x 18 3/4 in.)
Signed and dated HAUPT24 at the lower left centre.
Inscribed Bauhaus-Student Weimar 1924. / Selstbildnis 3 (farbige Fassung) / Mischtechnik auf Karton / Die Positiv-Negativ Wirkung, (1. u. 2 Fassung) / werden durch die Farbe aufgelöst. / Die Schwarz-Weiss Fassungen, (1. u. 2.) / ähneln eher einem Fotonegativ. / K. H. Haupt. Halle. a. d. S. / 1924. on a typewritten label pasted onto the reverse.
A stamp with the coat of arms of the city of Weimar pasted onto the reverse.
678 x 478 mm. (26 5/8 x 18 3/4 in.)
This large and impressive sheet is an early self-portrait by Karl Hermann Haupt, executed in 1924 while he was a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar. The artist’s typewritten label on the reverse may be translated as: ‘Bauhaus student Weimar in 1924 / Self Portrait 3 (colour version) / mixed media on card / The positive-negative effect, (1st & 2nd versions) / be resolved by the colour. / The black and white versions, (1st & 2nd) / look more like a photo negative. / K. H. Haupt. Halle a. d. S. / 1924.’
Another student drawing by Haupt of the same year, a Construction for an Equilibrium Study drawn in pencil on tracing paper, is in the collection of the Bauhaus Archive at the Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin.
Another student drawing by Haupt of the same year, a Construction for an Equilibrium Study drawn in pencil on tracing paper, is in the collection of the Bauhaus Archive at the Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin.
A painter and designer, Karl Hermann Haupt studied painting at the Kunstgewerbeschule in his native Halle between 1920 and 1923. Between 1923 and 1924 he took courses at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where he was taught by Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Walter Gropius. After his studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Haupt returned to Halle, where he worked as a painter until 1926, when he moved to Krefeld to take up a career as a textile painter. Haupt remained in Krefeld for much of the 1930’s, combining this with studies under Johannes Itten at the Krefeld School for Textile Decoration. In 1939 he was again in Halle, working as a technical draughtsman. Following military service in World War II, Haupt worked for the regional government of Saxony-Anhalt until 1951, when he was appointed a lecturer at the School of Applied Arts in Berlin. From 1953 onwards he worked as a scientific illustrator and photographer at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where he died in 1983.
The influence of the teachings of the Bauhaus is evident in the handful of works by Haupt of the 1920’s that have survived. These include an abstract composition in watercolour of 1925 and a gouache and watercolour drawing entitled The Red Man of about the same date; both works are today in New York private collections. Another gouache drawing by Haupt of 1925, in which the artistic theories of the Hungarian Constructivist painter László Moholy-Nagy are particularly evident, is today in the collection of the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, which also houses a number of linocuts by the artist that similarly reveal his debt to the example of Moholy-Nagy.
Provenance
Probably by descent to the artist’s grandson, Berlin, until c.1985
Anonymous sale, Munich, Von Zezschwitz, 3 December 2004, lot 1020
Whitford Fine Art, London
Private collection, New York
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 3 November 2010, lot 348.
Anonymous sale, Munich, Von Zezschwitz, 3 December 2004, lot 1020
Whitford Fine Art, London
Private collection, New York
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 3 November 2010, lot 348.