Franz Marc 'In the Rain' - 1912

"Franz Marc is fully aware of the relativity of the possibility of human life in this world, related to an objective certainty of existence. From this awereness arise his painting. "- Werner Haftmann, Painting in the 20th century, Rotterdam 1965

“Im Regen” by Franz Marc > ooc, 81 x 106 cm, location: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, German

"L'Atelier Rouge" by Matisse - 1911

"L'Atelier Rouge" by Henri Matisse, 1911, ooc, 162 x 130 cm., (64 in × 51 in), MOMA, New York

 

"The Red Room" by Matisse at the MOMA, which Marc Rothko visited every day for a month, was the source of all his colour-field-paintings. If you look at it, he said, you become  that colour and you become saturated by it.

'Saffron' by Marc Rothko, 1957, ooc, 177 x 137 cm, Lichtenstein, private collection

"My art is not abstract, it lives and breathes." - quote Marc Rothko

Vantongerloo Georges 'Function' - 1938

“The idea is the form, the form the idea. The composition is conceived, ab initio, in plastic terms. It cannot be transelated into any other language, and is not itself a translation from any other language. The desire for ‘the new form’ as an independent organism was created by a feeling of discomfort in relation to the reproducing painting.” – The philosophy of modern art by Herbert Read, 1964.



Frantisek Kupka "Rising Force" - 1918

“The artist is not a slave to nature, or to the science of nature. His mind is emancipated – free to express, not himself (for that would still be a kind of slavery) but a new vision, a new order of reality, an ideal beauty.” – The Philosophy of Modern Art, Human Art and Inhuman Nature by Herbert Read, 1964.

Kupka’s  “Rising Force” was exposed for the first time in Paris 1990 - oil on canvas, 72 x 59 cm

Paul Klee "Von der Liste Gestrichen" (Removed from the list) - 1933

Paul Klee:  “Uns trägt kein volk.” – the people are not with us.

In 1937, the Nazis in Germany confiscated  102 works by Klee, of which seventeen were shown at the exhibition of Degenerate Art. His art was branded as 'degenerate', 'subversive' and 'insane'.
At his death in 1940 from an incurable rheumatic disease, Klee left more than 9000 works of art, as well as many writings, essays, diaries and many letters.

“Von der Liste Gestrichen” (Removed from the list), oil on cardboard, format: 31.5cm x 24cm

Location:  centrum Paul Klee, Bern, donation from Livia Klee.