Edmund Kesting (1892-1970) - Kreuztragung

In the auction there is an abstract composition on parchment paper by the prominent German artist Edmund Kesting from 1919, here from the 1960s/1970s in the Constructivist style, with sheet size 34.5 x 48 cm and image motif 15 x 13 cm.

The woodcut is signed with the artist’s stamp. The limited edition of the 1919 woodcut – here numbered 87 – of “100 copies” was issued in the 1960s/70s. The condition is excellent; at the top left edge of the sheet there is a minor crease (see photo).

There is another Kesting print in a parallel auction, as well as other German Constructivists (BUCHHOLZ and MAATSCH).

VITA EDMUND KESTING (Source: excerpts from Wikipedia)

Edmund Kesting (born July 27, 1892 in Dresden; died October 21, 1970 in Birkenwerder) was a German painter, graphic artist, photographer, and art educator. He is counted among the representatives of Informalism.

In 1919 Kesting founded the private art school Der Weg – Schule für Gestaltung. In 1921 he met Herwarth Walden and began to work with Sturm with great enthusiasm.

From 1920 onward, constructivist works and cut collages emerged. He produced oil paintings, watercolors, and gouaches. In 1922 Kesting married his pupil Gerda Müller. He maintained close contacts with avant-garde artists such as Kurt Schwitters, László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Alexander Archipenko and others. Schwitters’ works especially impressed Kesting. From 1923 he participated in the exhibitions of the “Sturm” circle.

Around 1925 he began to engage more intensively with photography. He experimented with experimental photographic techniques such as multiple exposures, photograms, and negative montages; for this, Kesting used cameras with large matte formats. In 1926 the Berlin school Der Weg was founded, as well as the Society of Sturm friends in Dresden. Kesting became internationally successful. He participated in exhibitions in Moscow and New York. The Museum of Modern Art acquired cut collages by him. At the beginning of the 1930s he joined the German Work Federation (Deutscher Werkbund). In 1931 Edmund Kesting co-founded with Erich Fraaß and Bernhard Kretschmar the Neue Dresdener Sezession.

After the Nazis seized power, he was compulsorily enrolled as a member of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste. In 1933 the first searches of his house took place; Kesting then destroyed some of his works. In the following years he worked as a commercial photographer for photo and car companies. He could participate in exhibitions until 1936, but then received a work and exhibition ban, which did not affect his photography.

In 1937, in the nationwide coordinated campaign “Degenerate Art,” twelve of his works from public collections were confiscated and destroyed.

Together with Karl von Appen, Helmut Schmidt-Kirstein, Hans Christoph and others, Kesting founded the artist group “der ruf – befreite Kunst” in Dresden after the end of the Nazi dictatorship in 1945. In 1945/46, after the destruction of Dresden, he created a series of experimental photographic works titled Dresden Dance of Death, which explicitly references the famous Renaissance relief. In 1946 Kesting was appointed to the Academy of Applied Arts in Dresden; he took over the leadership of the teaching workshop “Photography and Film.” A year later he was dismissed, after which he moved to Berlin and in 1948 became head of the Photography department at the College of Visual and Applied Arts in Berlin-Weißensee. In 1953 he faced an immediate dismissal in the context of the Formalism Controversy. In 1955 he was appointed to the College of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg as “Lecturer for the Field of Camera”; he retired in 1960.

Edmund Kesting died in 1970 in Birkenwerder near Berlin, where he had moved in 1948. Between 1949 and 1959 there were no exhibitions of his works in the GDR; only around 1980 did Kesting’s work receive official recognition.