La France. 40 Zeichnungen von Karl Hubbuch (40 Drawings by Karl Hubbuch)
Karlsruhe: Karl Hubbuch, 1931. Limited first edition. Hardcover. 18/100. Folio. 97 (3)pp. Original illustrated white quarter-cloth with black lettering on cover in plain tan dustjacket with penciled title on cover, author's name on spine. Each plate printed by hand at the Plandruck G.m.b.H in Karlsruhe.
Dedicated to the French workers and artists. One page of text elaborates on the struggles of the working class: 'Within each people there is a dividing line that separates two classes: the class of the greedy, domineering, hedonistic agitators from the large class of workers, who want peace! There and here the worker is fighting. There and here the same pictures: depleted people, poverty, sickness, crime, prostitution. Those who have to make an honest living, who don't have connections, no inheritance and no talent to take advantage of certain economic situations, have to toil long and hard, year in and year out, to have a bit of bread for themselves and their family. There and here!' (translation from La France).
But it wasn't his communist stance that attracted the attention of government agents, it was his propensity to depict nudes, draw portraits of people in the demi world... it didn't take long for the press to join in on increasingly malicious assaults and eventually the Badischer Kunstverein started to remove Hubbuch's pictures from exhibitions. However, in this suit of drawings Hubbuch, with a few exceptions, omits all of that part of the world depicting the struggle of working class people throughout, using demi world motifs only to depict the insatiable, hedonistic appetite of the ruling class.
Contains list of drawings at rear. Text in German. Half-cloth with very light foxing, back cover a bit rubbed. Light age-toning of block, mostly the text pages. Plates in very good condition. Very good condition. Item #48257
Karl Hubbuch (1891–1979) studied at the Karlsruhe Academy from 1908 to 1912 and with Emil Orlik at the Berlin Museum of Arts and Crafts School until W.W.I. when he enlisted in the military service. After the war he returned to Karlsruhe to enroll in a master class at the Academy. In 1924 he became assistant lithographer at the Academy, became head of the drawing department a year later and was appointed professor. During a 1922 visit to Berlin he had met George Grosz inspiring several drawings in the vain of Grosz. Hubbuch's painting "The Classroom" was exhibited at the seminal "Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)" exhibition in Mannheim in 1925. Known for his antifascist stance he was dismissed from his teaching position in 1933 but resumed his work as a professor at the Academy after the war.
Price: $2,000.00