Lot 1371 | Alexander Max Koester | Ducks at the Shore

KOESTER, ALEXANDER MAX
1864 Bergneustadt - 1932 Munich

Title: Ducks at the Shore.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 73 x 92cm.
Notation: Signed lower right: A. Koester.
Frame: Framed.

Literature:
cf.: R. Stein, H. Koester: Alexander Koester 1864-1932. Leben und Werk, Recklinghausen 1988, cat. rais. no. 624.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Coming from the Karlsruhe school of painting around Carl Heinrich Hoff and Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth, Alexander Koester gained his first experiences as a genre and landscape painter. He distinguished himself early on with his impasto and broad brushstrokes, which he quickly developed into his lively, impressionistic, and unmistakable style of painting. Today he is particularly known for his life's theme of ducks, to which he devoted himself in a large number of lively and mostly large-format depictions.
He found this theme during his early years in the late 19th century when he moved into his first studio as a freelance painter in Klausen in South Tyrol. Initially still thematically oriented towards Franz von Defregger, his works became more and more individual and discovered the diverse worlds on the shore. Although mostly depicting spontaneous situations of waterfowl, his works are meticulously prepared with drawings and set the ducks in a differentiated scene. Koester developed his depictions of the animals on the glittering water in the play of light and shadow of the reeds from pure study objects into his unmistakable trademark. From 1925, he built a studio house in Dießen am Ammersee, which also included an extensive garden with duck ponds.
The work shown here was created while he was still in South Tyrol, which he had to leave with his wife in 1914 after the political changes. It is an early example of his art, which was already held in high esteem by contemporaries and which gave him the nickname "Enten-Koester".