LOHR, AUGUST1843 Munich - ca. 1919 Berlin


Title: Mexican Mountain Landscape with a Waterfall in front of the Iztaccíhuatl.
Date: 1910.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Measurement: 80,5 x 60cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower right: "August Lohr Mexico / 1910".
Frame: Framed.
Provenance:
Family ownership since 1954, purchased in Mexico back then.

The curriculum vita of the landscape painter August Lohr who comes from Austria certainly was extraordinary:
After an academic education in Munich amongst others by the historical painter Carl Theodor von Piloty and after some time as a freelance painter he becamse a colleague of the military painter and academy professor Louis Braun from 1879 on.

The latter was confronted with the commission by the city of Frankfurt to create a monumental panorama painting of the Battle of Sedan. After finishing this in 1881 visitors could observe the 1800 square meter circular painting from a platform in the middle of the room and experience themselves as participants of the surrounding thick of the battle. Such gigantic all round paintings were major attractions in the 19th century, specifically after the Franco-Prussian War.

When the German American William Wehner bought the Frankfurt panorama in 1884, Lohr travelled to the United States of America and supervised the building of the monumental work in New Orleans. Lohr became Wehner's advisor and helped him with the establishment of his "American Panorama Company". Back in Germany he advertised for the overseas project and permanently returned with some academically educated painter colleagues to Wehner in the USA in 1885. His company that was located in Milwaukee built amongst others gigantic panoramas with battles of the American Civil War. From 1887 - 1890 August Lohr operated his own "Panorama Company" together with his painter colleague Friedrich Wilhelm Heine. In 1890 Lohr migrated to Mexico where he lived as a landscape painter until his death.

Some of August Lohr's watercolours and oil paintings found their way back into his old home. It is a rare encounter that five of his works with Mexican motifs are gathered in this catalogue at the same time. Four of them were brought back to Germany in 1912 by the current owner's grandfather who knew the artist himself and have stayed in family ownership eversince.

Both landscape paintings "Wasserfall vor dem Iztaccíhuatl" (lot 1166) and "Gebirgslandschaft vor dem Popocatépetl" (lot 1167) show the handwriting of the proficient panorama painter. In layers, with bright and dark elements, the room is tiered, crowned by the shining white of the snow-covered mountains. A special atmosphere playing with the allure of the naive is radiated by these paintings.

Lot 1168 shows a landscape that is similarly constructed, but the sandy path that is leading from the foreground into the depth toward the Popocatépetl is animated by a little scene: a woman and a child - in back view - meet an equestrian that has stopped next to them. The colourful clothes and hat wears, folkloric in the European gaze, vitalise and locate the painting. Otherwise only the agave in the foreground hints at the region in the world where the volcano smoking in the background can be found.

The folkloric moment prevails the other painting assigned to August Lohr in lot 1170 and the watercolour of the sugar factory, lot 1169. In the latter the extracts of the powerful round arches allow a glimpse of the hilly landscape lying behind them. Yokes of oxen pull carts with loaded sugar cane into the yard. A man and a woman are standing on the momentarily unused rails and are talking. One scene of their work routine that is radiating calm and relaxation by means of the composition and the reduced colours nonetheless.
The riverscape is radiating harmony, as well. In the water surface of the river that is running angularly into the image centre the still bright sky of an early eveing is reflected. Two men and one woman are sitting on the flat barge in the foreground, one of them is presumably playing a guitar. The rosy evening sky is mirrored by the colour of the glow of the fire that is lighting up the building on the other bank. In this harmonic painting in shades of pink, green, and brown, the comprehensively educated colorist has made a wonderful "exclamation mark" by means of the woman's bright blue cloak.