Einar Jolin
"Cirkus"
Bukowskis is pleased to present Einar Jolin's magnificent painting "Circus," executed in 1917. "Circus" has previously been part of several prominent Swedish collections, including that of Director Herman Gotthardt and the well-known screenwriter and actor Hasse Ekman.
The motif "Circus" was created a few years after Jolin returned from Paris to Stockholm. In his own interpretation of expressionism, charmingly naive and with a refined colour palette, Jolin has created a motif filled with joy of life in a troubled time.
"Circus" is an almost solemnly strict composition. The unusually large canvas for the artist enhances the vertical lines in the motif with its height. Between tall columns, the audience sits upright in the rows of benches. In the foreground, a long silhouette of a solitary gentleman in a top hat dominates. As a counterbalance to the somewhat stiff figures, the oval ring fills the canvas, and its curved shape resonates in the sea of spectators and in the vaulted arches of the ceiling. With warm tones of sand yellow and recurring red details in the decor, the artist creates a secluded scene where a divertissement is taking place. At the centre, a clown with a bright red ball, a small horse, a poodle, a tamer with an unclear task, a dapper rider on a white horse, and a few figures who seem to be waiting for their turn. The exit to the underlying reality is guarded by a group of gentlemen in tailcoats. As observers, we follow the spectacle from the back row.
Estimate: 1 800 000 - 2 000 000 SEK
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Jolin stages a drama where the acting performers step back in favour of a visually orchestrated whole; they function more as props than as protagonists. The pictorial space is instead dominated by the spotlight that conjures the performance as an autonomous spectacle, characterised by escapism and optical intensity.
This issue is further developed in the painting The Bullfight (1924), created after a stay in Spain, where the artist shifts focus away from the dramatic and violent implications of the motif. The interest is directed towards the play of light and the visual phenomena that arise in the arena, rather than the event itself. When Jolin returned to Circus in 1926 and reworked the composition, a clear kinship between the works emerges, both in terms of disposition and in the treatment of light as a structuring element. According to Ragnar Hoppe, Circus is one of the artist's most cohesive and typical works.
Nils Palmgren writes: "In the spring of 1917, when Einar Jolin had moved to a studio at Kungsbroplan, something quite remarkable happened. Ragnar Hoppe knocked on the door, and when Jolin opened, the friend introduced him to a very lively gentleman from Malmö, named Herman Gotthardt, who had recently taken up art collecting as a hobby to calm his nerves." Merchant Herman Gotthardt purchased a total of sixteen canvases from the astonished Jolin, including the auction's remarkable "Circus" from the same year, 1917.
Much of the Swedish art that Gotthardt collected had its origins in the Swedish "Men of 1909," who were greatly influenced by Matisse and the Fauves. A painting was to be a "feast for the eye," as Isaac Grünewald put it. The Gotthardt collection included works by Tor Bjurström, Nils Dardel, Isaac Grünewald, Sigrid Hjertén, Einar Jolin, Per Leander Engström, and Gösta Sandels. "Circus" would eventually be included in Hasse Ekman's collection, while 760 works of Nordic modernist art, collected by Gotthardt between 1914 and 1943, were donated to Malmö Museum in 1944.
Hasse Ekman (1915 – 2004) was a Swedish director, screenwriter, actor, producer, and lyricist. At just 25 years old, he made his first film and was early on regarded as a prodigy in the entertainment industry. He was incredibly prolific, and in addition to directing and acting in film and on stage, he also wrote popular songs, including "Swing it magistern" and "Regntunga skyar," as well as books, essays, articles, and revue numbers. Hasse Ekman was also a dedicated art collector. Before Hasse Ekman withdrew from Sweden and professional life, 40 works from his significant art collection were sold at the Svensk-Franska Konstgalleriet in 1965. The collection included prominent works by Nils Dardel, Sven X:et, Isaac Grünewald, Sigrid Hjertén, Bror Hjort, and no less than four works by Einar Jolin, including the auction's remarkable and wonderful "Circus."
Einar Jolin at Modern Art & Design
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