Thilo Maatsch (1900-1983) - Abstrakte Komposition

COMPOSITIONAL PAINTING
(Kurt Leonard about Thilo Maatsch 1976)

In the auction there is an abstract composition by the significant German artist Thilo Maatsch from 1923. The edition is probably from the 1960s; an edition number does not exist. Size: 20 x 22.5 cm, motif size 15 x 9 cm. The condition is very good. The sheet is flawless. The woodcut on thin Japanese paper is signed under the motif on the right.

There are in a parallel auction two more MAATSCH prints as well as the German constructivists KESTING and BUCHHOLZ.

VITA THILO MAATSCH (Source among others: Wikipedia)

Thilo Friedrich Maatsch (born August 13, 1900 in Braunschweig; died March 20, 1983 in Königslutter) was a German graphic artist, painter and sculptor. He was an artist of abstract and concrete art as well as of constructivism.

In 1918 Maatsch founded the “Society of Friends of Young Art” in Braunschweig together with Rudolf Jahns and Johannes Molzahn. Members included, among others, Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee. Moreover, Wassily Kandinsky, who supported Maatsch and revered Maatsch as his father, designed the group's sigil. In the same year Maatsch befriended art collector Otto Ralfs. In 1919 and 1921 he visited Heinrich Vogeler in Worpswede.

In 1924 the first purchase of a work by Thilo Maatsch was made by the Braunschweig collector Otto Ralfs. For this, he came to Maatsch’s single-room apartment with Nina and Wassily Kandinsky to select an oil painting. For Maatsch it was a great honor to have his picture in a collection next to works by Mondrian, Kandinsky, Klee and several other artists who were already well known at the time. In 1925 Ralfs initiated an exhibition of the “Society of Friends of Young Art”.

At the Bauhaus in Weimar and later Dessau he became acquainted with Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, László Moholy-Nagy, William Wauer and Lothar Schreyer. Kandinsky, Klee, and Moholy-Nagy allowed him to stay in their studios and study with them. With Kurt Schwitters he was not only a friend but shared a similar formal language, which is why Maatsch is sometimes counted among Schwitters’ circle.

In the same year he joined the November Group and became a member there. He also regularly participated until 1932 in the “Great Berlin Art Exhibition”. In 1927 Herwarth Walden even organized for him in his Der Sturm gallery what Maatsch himself proudly reported in 1970 as having had “at least 50 graphics and about 10 watercolors and several paintings” in a solo show.

Under National Socialism, as for many other avant-garde artists, there was a collapse. In 1933 Maatsch’s artworks were confiscated for the first time. In 1934 he was excluded from the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, listed as “degenerate art.”

About 20 years after the end of the war, around 1966 his rediscovery began, and from that time on there followed a dense succession of exhibitions. Works by Maatsch were purchased by more prestigious private collections, notably Carl Lazlo, who actively supported him by publishing several portfolio editions and a book publication, as well as Alfred and Elisabeth Hoh. Thilo Maatsch passed away with great respect in Königslutter in 1983.