Christian Lenz

Felix Billeter

A student--and later close friend--of Henri Matisse, German artist Hans Purrmann, born in 1880, is illuminated in this long-overdue catalogue raisonné, which focuses on the artist's impressive oeuvre of watercolors and gouaches and contains more than 400 catalogued works from his student days through 1965--one year before his death. Purrmann's friendship with Matisse and his deep exploration of Paul Cézanne's work had a marked influence on his own art and writing. Like members of the German Expressionist group Die Brücke, Purrmann reinvigorated the use of watercolor as a primary medium; during the 1920s and 30s, he was one of the most accomplished watercolorists in Germany. In his later years, Purrmann traveled through Italy, creating many of his landscape masterworks. Notable among these is a series of breathtaking and fragile works on paper that were produced in Levanto in the 1960s.

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