(Meschede 1887–1914 Perthes les Hurlus) Girl outside a hat shop, verso oval red estate stamp and estate number, ‘4’, verso titled and dated 1912 in unknown hand, watercolour, ink and pencil on chamois-coloured watercolour paper, 29 x 23 cm, framed, (PS)

Provenance: Galerie Vömel, Düsseldorf
Mayer Collection, Bad Godesberg
Private Collection, Rhineland

Literature: Gustav Vriesen, August Macke, Stuttgart 1953, no. 142 Heiderich, Ursula, August Macke, Aquarelle, Werkverzeichnis, Ostfildern-Ruit 1997, no. 340

Exhibitions/ exhibition catalogue: Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne 1918, ‘Das Junge Rheinland’ Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover 1918, ‘August Macke-Heinrich Nauen’, XVI Sonderausstellung, cat. no. 55;
Graphisches Kabinett van Bergh u. Comp., Dr. Koch, Düsseldorf 1919, ‘August Macke’Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover 1935, August Macke, cat. no. 80;
Kunsthalle, Basle 1936, Paula Modersohn-Becker-August Macke, cat. no. 128;
Museen der Stadt Cologne in der Alten Universität, Cologne 1947, ‘August Gedächtnisausstellung’, cat. no. 106;
Städtisches Kunsthaus Bielefeld, Bielefeld 1957, ‘Macke, Aquarell-Ausstellung’, cat. no. 142, with ill., p.23

After meeting Robert Delaunay in 1912 and 1913, August Macke adopted his pictorial principles, which led Macke to produce tense, richly contrasting, yet powerfully cohesive compositions. The painting, ‘Mädchen vor dem Hutladen’ strikingly exhibits Macke’s admiration for Delaunay’s images of shop windows, which is mirrored in particular by the modulated configuration of planes of the street scenes. Macke representated passers-by on the street in a variety of ways in 1913 in a series of drawings and paintings on the subject of street and shop window scenes. This sketch with its colour highlights depicts three girls outside a shop window and demonstrates how Macke developed Delaunay’s pictorial principles according to his own formal criteria, based on a naturalistic pencil drawing.