작품 상세

Bronze. Height 188.5 cm. With artist's signum to the top of the cast-with plinth. Numbered 'I' to the reverse of the plinth and with the foundry mark "GUSS BARTH BERLIN". One of two casts. - Grey-green patina. Patina for the most part irregular and with several stains (weather effects due to outdoor deployment). Rudloff 736; Gerhard Marcks Werktagebuch Gips/Bronze (works diary plaster/bronze) 516 Provenance Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf (acquired in 1998); since then in private possession Exhibition Berlin 1963 (Akademie der Künste), Rückblick und Gegenwart, cat. no. 315 Literature Gerhard Marcks Haus, vol. 1: Plastik, Gerhard-Marcks-Stiftung, Bremen 1971, cat. no. 160 The portraits of young women carried out by Gerhard Marcks in numerous variations from 1945 until the end of his career make up what is quite likely the most extensive area within his oeuvre. Günter Busch writes of them: "In spite of their - always strictly austere - beauty they are no thoughtless, 'classicistic' affirmation of a doubtful human greatness, no mere 'as if'. Like the post-war monuments, they would be inconceivable without all of the turmoil that our century has lived through, which they confront with their 'Nevertheless'. ... The artist circles round his theme in ever new variations, always achieving a new expression through slight shifts in weighting, positioning of the limbs, twisting along the axes, the angle of the head, the handling of the surface, the articulation of the hair and so on. And it remains surprising how he always arrives at an entirely coherent creation of form and human statement by means of these different elements - which are always utilised in a distinct way and in new constellations" (cited in: Gerhard Marcks: Das plastische Werk, Frankfurt a.M./Berlin/Wien 1977, pp. 72f.). The body language of our striding young woman conveys an impression of graceful movement. Being in the midst of taking a step, she has only a few points of contact with the ground beneath her, and this lends great lightness to her. The lively arm posture, the neck stretched slightly forwards and the attentive and quite curious gaze ahead express a purposeful striving onwards. The goldsmith Merwe Scherneck served as the model for this bronze. Gerhard Marcks also created several other figures after her image in 1960/61, including "Hemdausziehende auf eckigem Sockel" (Figure Removing Her Shirt on Angular Base; Rudloff 747) and "Portrait IV Merwe" (768). The plaster model of our "Schreitendes Mädchen" (Striding Girl) was only cast twice - Marcks reworked it into the figure "Schreitende, Arme vor der Brust" (Striding Figure, Arm before Her Chest; Rudloff 781) in the same year.