Porträt Hugo Biallowons. 1914.
Pencil drawing.
On wove paper. 20.5 x 14.1 cm (8 x 5.5 in), size of sheet.
[CH].
• From the sought-after creative period in Berlin.
• Between 1914 and 1916 Kirchner made the painting "Porträt Hugo" (Gordon 415) and also eternalized the dancer in a photograph, in prints (at, amongst others, the Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main) and some sketches.
• Kirchner captured his friend's clear and striking look in a frontal view portrait with just a few lines.
• Two years afterr the present drawing was made, Hugo Biallowons fell in the Battle of Verdun.

PROVENANCE: Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Würzburg (with the collector's stamp, Lugt 6032).

EXHIBITION: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 1995-2001).
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle an der Saale (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2001-2017).
Buchheim Museum, Bernried (permanent loan from the Hermann Gerlinger Collection, 2017-2022).

LITERATURE: Heinz Spielmann (ed.), Die Maler der Brücke. Sammlung Hermann Gerlinger, Stuttgart 1995, p. 263, SHG no. 379 (with illu.).
Hermann Gerlinger, Katja Schneider (eds.), Die Maler der Brücke. Inventory catalog Hermann Gerlinger Collection, Halle (Saale) 2005, p. 340, SHG no. 763 (with illu.).

In 1914 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner met the forest supervisor and dancer Hugo Biallowons (1879–1916), a close friend of the archeologist and art historian Botho Graef. The same year he made the painting "Porträt Hugo" (Gordon 415). Kirchner shot a photo of Botho Graef and Hugo Biallowons in front of the painting "Badende im Raum" (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 1880-1938, ex. cat. Berlin/Munich/Cologne/Zürich 1980, p. 70, illu. no. 71). Kirchner was shattered by Hugo Biallowons' death in the Battle of Verdun in 1916. He honored his friends one last time with a striking woodcut. [EH]

In good condition. Margins with slight kinks, especially upper and left margin and with a faint vertical kink in the face. With two to three brownish stains and a slightly glossy spot in right margin.[AR]