Francis Kyle Gallery

Malte Sartorius

Zwei Bonito (Two Bonito), etching ed. 30

23.5 x 31.5in 60 x 80cm


Stilleben Javea I (Javea still life I), etching ed. 70		Nische mit krug (Alcove with jug), etching ed. 60
9.5 x 14in 24 x 35cm		12.5 x 17.25in 31.5 x 44cm


Geflochtenor korb und drei paprika (Woven basket with three peppers), etching ea.
10 x 11in 25 x 28cm

Price range: £300.00 - £5000.00

Biography

Malte Sartorius was born in Waldlinden, Germany, 1933 and studied at Göttingen and at Stuttgart Academy of Art under Karl Rössing. A revered teacher of graphic art at Braunschweig College of Art for some thirty-seven years, he has held over seventy one-man exhibitions in public and private galleries in Europe and North America during this period. Some sixty public collections have acquired Sartorius' work, including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Landesmuseum, Münster; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva; Library of Congress, Washington; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; and Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro. Malte Sartorius has been represented by Francis Kyle Gallery since 1982 and has held four one-man exhibitions in 1984, 1986, 1989 and 2001. In 1986, on the occasion of the Ridgeway Exhibition, the Gallery published a limited edition portfolio of his work commissioned for this event, together with a poem by Kevin Crossley-Holland. Besides numerous comprehensive catalogues, an illustrated monograph on Malte Sartorius by Joachim Kruse was published in 2001 (Verlage Th. Schäfer, Hanover).

Sartorius inhabits a world of objects, but looks at them in a different way. His attitudes are influenced by another deep-rooted German tradition - the feeling for the classic, combined with a nostalgia for the colour and warmth of the South. He aligns himself with the great German Neo-classical architect Schinkel, and with the Goethe who wrote 'Kennst du das Land?'. The aim of those who work within this particular tradition has always been to obey the laws of classic measure and proportion, yet at the same time to imbue the result with passionate feeling.

He evokes the South with singular power and purity. And he is also the master of a poetic quietism, particularly clearly manifested in the still lifes which combine a Morandi-like play of shapes, with a feeling for the harmonies of domestic existence, or those of the unhurried routines of a printmaker's studio. The feeling for the classic is here merged with an evocation of the values of everyday life - something perhaps commoner in 17th century art than it has been in that of our own time.

Edward Lucie-Smith

Malte Sartorious

Malte Sartorius is generally recognized as the most accomplished etcher now practising in Germany, the birthplace of this most exacting of print media.

Since the mid-1960s Malte Sartorius has been accustomed to spending several months of each year in his studio in Spain, and it is here that this 'master of a poetic quietism…with a feeling for the harmonies of domestic existence' (Edward Lucie-Smith) finds his subjects in the simplest artifacts and situations from daily life - baskets, earthenware pots, wine bottles, the corner of a table, a bowl of fruit - focusing on them with a contemplative directness which has prompted comparison with the serenely detached still lifes of Giorgio Morandi.

While the original drawings are executed in a range of subtly subdued, low key, earthen tones, the etchings are characterized by an abundance of rich contrasts, mainly in black and white, for Sartorius a key to his understanding of southern Spain. In these quiet, graceful compositions, variations on a small range of themes, a mood of tranquility is not so much captured as freshly created within each picture, the spaces between the components becoming as expressive as the components themselves.

Besides the characteristic Iberian subjects, Sartorius' work features subjects found in the course of his occasional travels overseas - to Iceland, the Philippines, China more recently - mostly arising from invitations to hold workshops or receive awards. As ever, the imagery here comes typically not from any too evident novelty but rather a perception of the near-at-hand and sympathetic in texture, such as a volcanic, rocky terrain closely observed or basketware and other market produce seen in profusion. Always, however, there is a simplicity in the abundance, a determination to achieve a form of stillness in pattern, sometimes reaching a point where through a 'wholesale eviction of events' observation becomes one with contemplation.