Modern & Contemporary Sale Art + Design & Watches
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To be sold at our Important Sale: Modern & Contemporary Art + Design & Watches 12 – 14 November 2024
Lot 515 Wilhelm Freddie (Denmark 1909‑1995). ”Naturens vidundere”. Signed and dated Freddie feb. 1942 lower left. Oil on canvas, 100 x 90 cm.
With inscription on the reverse by the artist: ”Naturens vidundere, Wilhelm Freddie, København, 1942”.
250.000 – 300.000 SEK
€ 22.000 – 26.000
Galerie Morgan, Stockholm.
Galerie S:t Lucas, Stockholm, ”Wilhelm Freddie Surreal”, 16 January-6 February 1945, cat. no. 5.
Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, ”De danske – profiler i dansk konst under 1900-talet”, 12 October 1984‑6 January 1985, cat. no. 57.
Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, ”Wilhelm Freddie”, 17 November 1989‑7 January 1990, cat. no. 48.
Galerie S:t Lucas, Wilhelm Freddie Surreal, catalogue no. 35, 1945, illustrated.
Rolf Læssøe, Wilhelm Freddie, 1996, fig. 73, illustrated p. 111.
The painter, sculptor and filmmaker Wilhelm Freddie is considered to be the central representative for the Danish surrealism. As an artist, Freddie was autodidact and commenced his career with abstract paintings. Inspired by the great Salvador Dalí, Freddie was drawn towards audacious gestures and when he in 1930 presented his painting “Liberté Égalité Fraternité” at the Artist’s Autumn Exhibition in Copenhagen it was the first surrealist painting ever exhibited in Denmark. Freddie’s imagery soon developed into impossible worlds combined by different realistic elements joined in unreal, dreamlike scenes. 1936 he was invited to participate in the International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries in London, but the majority of his works were confiscated by the British customs. His works during the 1930s were often characterized by erotic elements, in 1937 Freddie caused a scandal in Denmark with the exhibition Sex-Surreal that was closed by the police who seized several of the paintings and he was sentenced ten days in prison for his “pornographic exaggerations”.
As a true rebel of the arts, Freddie was not deeply affected by the recalcitrant welcoming of his surrealist works and continued his journey. In January of 1940 he presented a new exhibition at Rådhuspladsens Udstillingssal that was welcomed with great success. In the exhibition catalogue he explained that he was focusing on the ratio between the subject and the object: “the discrepancy between the psychic and physical life is removed by materializing the psychic and giving the physical life an irrational value. By erasing any difference between dreams and reality, between the subjective and the objective, it is possible to make the person active in allowing the inner emotional life with its dreams, instincts and drives to completely merge with the external realities.” Translated quote, cited from Rolf Læssøe’s book “Freddie”, 1996.
The great success of the exhibition that gathered approximately around 20.000 visitors and where many prominent collectors now found a great interest in Freddie’s works, led to that he could almost earn his living through his art. Because of this, he now continued to create with a greater confidence and the works evolving are, as described by Læssøe: “more and more professional, both in the often completely masterful, technical treatment of the medium of the oil paint and in the intensity and inner coherence of the vision”. Among these works is the vivid composition “Naturens vidundere” from 1942. Here we meet a gloomy, more romantic tone where a surreal dreamlike vision takes place at a beach by the sea. With a dazzling intensity the shining golden yellow sky meets the powerful foamy waves and a scenery with different figures on the beach. Closest to the viewer is the behind of a black man with shining white shorts, raising a cudgel above his head in a dramatic pose, as if he is going to protect himself from the open torso before him. As with all surrealistic masterpieces it is impossible to interpret the motifs and no explanation should be presented. It is a dreamlike vision from the artist’s inner process that expresses itself perfectly well for its viewer’s own impressions.
In 1944 Wilhelm Freddie fled the German occupation of Denmark and settled down in Stockholm. He stayed in Sweden until 1950 and these years became highly important for his artistic development. In a letter to Copenhagen dated in March 1946 he wrote: “I’m in a great work mood – I think it’s nice pictures I get to paint here – the sun is shining above me, if only my finances were better.” His finances were saved when all the works exhibited at Galerie S:t Lucas in Stockholm were sold, as well as the twenty-two paintings he had left in his studio. Lyrical about these fortunate events, Freddie wrote in another letter in May 1946: “I am creating so many paintings now. I feel so bad about myself, I could pass out with joy at work and eat the pictures.” Further on during the forties Freddie was invited by André Breton to participate in the international surrealist exhibition at Galerie Maeght in Paris. Today he undoubtfully counts as one of the most important Danish modernist painters whose works are represented in many prominent institutional and private collections. ■