{"product_id":"three-nudes-1944-monumental-european-modernist-oil-painting","title":"Three Nudes, 1944 | Monumental European Modernist Oil Painting","description":"\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThere are paintings that need explaining and there are paintings that simply stop you in your tracks.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis enormous oil painting falls firmly into the latter camp.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePainted in 1944, three monumental female nudes almost completely fill the canvas. One turns her back to us, the central figure stands frontally with her arms raised behind her head, while the third sits alongside them wearing an extraordinary arrangement of blue flowers in her hair.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe scale is fantastic. At approximately 1.5 metres wide, the figures are almost life size and have an extraordinary presence on the wall.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStylistically, the painting sits within European figurative modernism. The bodies have been deliberately simplified and exaggerated, with strong outlines, flattened perspective and wonderfully strange, almond shaped eyes. There are elements of Expressionism in the distortion, but also something much older and almost classical about the arrangement of the three figures.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd then there is the colour.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe pale flesh tones sit against a fabulous flat teal green ground, punctuated by deep aubergine, black, blue and flashes of yellow. Despite being painted more than eighty years ago, it feels remarkably contemporary.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWe think the painting is signed \u003c\/span\u003e“Huppert” and dated 1944 lower right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003eThe signature has led us down something of a research rabbit hole. One possible artist is the German painter and art teacher Willy Huppert (1899–1979)\u003cspan\u003e, who studied at the Karlsruhe Academy between 1919 and 1925 and later taught there. Huppert is known to have painted figurative subjects as well as landscapes, including a recorded oil entitled \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDie Landarbeiterinnen\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (The Female Agricultural Workers). He was actively producing signed oils during the 1940s. However, we have not found sufficient evidence to make a firm attribution and would much rather leave a question mark than invent a certainty.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"isSelectedEnd\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSo we are selling this for exactly what it is:\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA huge, strange and exceptionally decorative European painting.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"viki.knott","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57375445844348,"sku":null,"price":1250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0505\/7295\/1736\/files\/IMG_4244.jpg?v=1788194543","url":"https:\/\/www.vikiknott.com\/products\/three-nudes-1944-monumental-european-modernist-oil-painting","provider":"viki.knott","version":"1.0","type":"link"}