Untitled (Demonic Birds) Ella Bergmann-Michel

• An almost ethereal depiction, full of virtuosic lightness • In the poetic visual language characteristic of Bergmann-Michel, she depicts a sombre theme • From the estate of the artist couple Michel and Bergmann-Michel Ella Bergmann-Michel, known to friends simply as EBM, ranks alongside her husband Robert Michel, Kurt Schwitters, Willi Baumeister and László Moholy-Nagy as one of the key figures of the avant-garde and is a pioneer of the art of collage. In 1917, the artist couple Bergmann and Michel met whilst studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar and would collaborate closely for the rest of their lives. They worked for a short time at the newly founded Bauhaus, but soon settled in the ‘Schmelz’ in the Taunus region – an old paint mill in Michel’s birthplace – which they later named the ‘Heimatmuseum of Modern Art’. They were close friends with Johannes Molzahn and Kurt Schwitters, as well as the photographers Martha Hoepffner and Ilse Bing. Alongside her extremely diverse artistic work, Ella Bergmann-Michel worked as a commercial artist, photographer and documentary filmmaker, and produced various interior design schemes. In the mid-1920s, she was involved in the social reform movement known as ‘New Frankfurt’, where, from 1930 onwards, she co-led the ‘Working Group for New Film/League for Independent Film’ alongside Paul Seligmann. Owing to the political developments of the 1930s, the artist couple largely withdrew from the public art scene. To provide for their family, Robert Michel ran a fish farm at the Schmelzmühle, whilst Ella Bergmann-Michel devoted herself to farming and rearing small livestock. It was not until after the end of the Second World War that the couple resumed their artistic activities. Thanks to the exhibition ‘Pioneers of Collage’, held in Leverkusen in 1963, the life’s work of the artist couple Bergmann/Michel was rediscovered and brought to public attention. Following her time at art school, during which she produced numerous woodcuts influenced by Expressionism, Ella Bergmann-Michel began creating her first Dada-Futurist works as early as 1917–18: material pictures glued together from found objects – so-called assemblages – and paper collages. These works are predominantly characterised by circular forms that clearly evoke the mechanics of wheels. This makes EBM undoubtedly the (as yet largely unrecognised) pioneer of both the collage technique and the wheel motif, which can be found shortly afterwards in works by her husband Robert Michel and Kurt Schwitters. | 1895 Paderborn - Neustadt/Schwarzwald 1971 | Moderne Kunst | Arbeiten auf Papier | Nummer: 26x2566 | Provenance: Nachlass Bergmann-Michel.

Stima:20.000€

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