Kündung

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Robert Köpke, Mädchenpaar (Two Girls), woodcut, 35. x 27 cm, £1250 front cover:

Charles Crodel, Weiblicher Kopf (Head of a Woman), woodcut, 32.5 x 22.5 cm, £1250

Combining hand-cut typography with striking imagery, Kündung ranks among the most ambitious projects of German Expressionism. A triumph of design, it was also the last Expressionist periodical to be published in Hamburg – an extraordinary undertaking cut short by the catastrophic financial collapse of the Weimar Republic.

Kündung was the brainchild of Rosa Schapire and Wilhelm Niemeyer, leading academic luminaries of the Expressionist movement. The journal was founded as an adjunct to the recently established ‘Kunstbundes Hamburg’, a federation of artists, writers, and patrons who promoted lectures and exhibitions of modern art.

Its title – meaning ‘Proclamation’ – announced the journal’s revolutionary spirit: Kündung heralded a new age of Expressionist art, poetry, and criticism, one that drew on the vitality of ‘primitive’ African art and which would reinvigorate contemporary culture through a fusion of the figurative and the abstract. Alongside full-page woodcuts and lithographic prints, scattered throughout the text were numerous ‘Wortbilder’ –

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‘word-images’ – cut by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, preeminent Expressionist and one of Niemeyer’s heroes. A key contributor to the publication, Schmidt-Rottluff was also responsible for the journal’s powerful title page, a tumbling, typographic tour-de-force printed over different colourblocks for each successive issue.

Printing took place in the studios of a local university where Niemeyer lectured. The quality of the impressions, combined with an ‘extraordinarily low’ print run of just 200 copies, made Kündung the foremost publication of its kind, as noted by German Expressionist expert Timothy Benson: ‘This exemplary printing facility and the substantial Kunstbund funding made possible one of the most sumptuous Expressionist periodicals combining poetry and art.’

Hyperinflation throughout Germany eventually killed off the deluxe journal. Having premiered in January of 1921, it ran for just twelve issues before production was suspended. Since its release, many of its lesserknown contributors have faded into obscurity. The few editions that have survived reveal a host of unfamiliar names that prove the rich breadth of the Expressionist movement, and the particular strength of its Hamburg branch. As Benson writes: ‘If Kündung was done in by inflation, it had survived well into the era of Expressionist obituaries, Dada, and the dawn of International Constructivism – not an insignificant accomplishment.’

Timothy O. Benson is Curator of the Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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Robert M. Huth, Tischgenossen (Table Companions), woodcut, 21.5 x 29 cm, £950 Franz Radziwill, Liebesgram (Sorrow of Love), woodcut, 22 x 31 cm, £950

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Siegfried Schott, Der Regenbogen (The Rainbow), woodcut, 30 x 29 cm, £950

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Siegfried Schott, Der Tod (Death), woodcut, 24.5 x 30 cm, ÂŁ950

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Lasar Segall, Junge Bettlerin (Young Beggar Woman), lithograph, 33 x 17 cm, ÂŁ750

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Martel Schwichtenberg, Kinder (Children), woodcut, 24.5 x 33 cm, ÂŁ1250 Lasar Segall, Im Atelier (In the Studio), lithograph, 25 x 32 cm, ÂŁ950

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Thomas King, Harmonie (Harmony), woodcut, 32 x 21 cm, £595

Thomas King, Gestalt (Form), woodcut, 31 x 21 cm, £750

Lasar Segall, Witwe und Kind (Widow and Child), woodcut, 24 x 18 cm, £750

Lasar Segall, Betender Knabe (Praying Youth), woodcut, 25 x 20 cm, £750

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Emil Maetzel, Der Blinde Vater (The Blind Father), woodcut, 34 x 24.5 cm, ÂŁ1250

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Karl Opfermann, Die Genesende (The Convalescent), woodcut, 36.5 x 23 cm, £1250

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Franz Radziwill, Landschaft (Landscape), woodcut, 20 x 28 cm, £750 Martel Schwichtenberg, Zwei Alte Frauen (Two Old Women), woodcut, 24.5 x 33 cm, £950

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Siegfried Schott, Una Sancta Cubica, woodcut, 30 x 24 cm, £950

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Werner Lange, Abstraktion (Abstraction), woodcut, 29 x 24.5 cm, £595

Wilhelm Tegtmeier, Dorf im Allgau (Village in Allgau), woodcut, 24 x 18.5 cm, £595

Charles Crodel, Der Blinde (The Blind Man), woodcut, 22 x 24 cm, £750

Wilhelm Tegtmeier, Berghäuser im Allgau (Hillside Houses in Allgau), woodcut, 27.5 x 22.5 cm, £595

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Willi Titze, Mann am Tisch (Man at the Table), woodcut, 30.5 x 25 cm, £750

Werner Lange, Kopf (Head), woodcut, 32 x 22.5 cm, £950

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Charles Crodel, Männlicher Kopf (Head of a Man), woodcut, 32 x 23.5 cm, £1250

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Robert Kรถpke, Mann mit Glas (Man with Glass), woodcut, 35 x 24.5 cm, ยฃ1250

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Gerhard von Ruckteschell, Schreitende und Kinder (Strollers and Children), woodcut, 36 x 26 cm, ÂŁ1250

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Robert Köpke, Having Soul (Seele sein), 29 x 22 cm, £595

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Kündung (Proclamation), 29 x 22 cm, £750

Siegfried Schott, hand coloured, 29 x 22 cm, £750

Karl Opfermann, Schwermut (Melancholia), 29 x 22 cm, £595

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Charles Crodel, Das Bildnis des Dichters Theodor Däubler (Portrait of the poet Theodor Däubler), lithograph, 30 x 24 cm, £950

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Franz Radziwill, Der Prophet (The Prophet), woodcut, 30 x 18 cm, £950 opposite:

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Kündung, coloured woodcuts, 32 x 25 cm, £750 each

Willi Titze, Huldigung (Homage), woodcut, 29.5 x 23 cm, ÂŁ950

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February 2018