Important Spring Sale presents Lotte Laserstein

Bukowskis presents "I blå rock. Målaren och Madeleine" by Lotte Laserstein at the seasons largest live auction – Important Spring Sale.

In the painting "I blå rock. Målaren och Madeleine" " from 1950, we are met with an introspective and quietly charged scene, where Lotte Laserstein subtly conveys a sense of inner trial and external alienation. The work is one of her few self-portraits in which she is not depicted as an actively creating artist. Instead, we see her seated, dressed in a blue smock, looking directly at us. Her posture is relaxed yet burdened, as though she carries something unresolved. Her hands rest in her lap – there is neither brush nor easel in sight.

At her side stands Madeleine – an important figure in Laserstein’s Swedish life. Madeleine, or Margarete Jaraczewsky, was also a refugee from Germany and became Laserstein’s closest model during her years in Sweden. Their friendship was not as intense as the one between Lotte and her earlier muse, Traute Rose, in Berlin, but it was marked by mutual respect and trust. Madeleine appears in a large number of works from the Swedish period, both as a portrait model, in nude studies, and in painter-model scenes that often carry a quiet gravity.

In "I blå rock. Målaren och Madeleine", it is Madeleine who stands, facing the artist, one hand gently placed on her shoulder. It is a gesture that conveys support and presence, yet Laserstein appears absent – her gaze extends beyond the room, as though she is elsewhere, emotionally and mentally. The blue background reinforces this sense of inner and outer distance – a symbol of the exile in which Laserstein lived, where Sweden was indeed a refuge, but never truly a home.