A painting by the German Expressionist master Max Pechstein sold for €700,000, double its price estimate. Ketterer Kunst, who held this auction, also holds the world record for Max Pechstein with “Weib mit Inder auf Teppich (Vorderseite), Früchte II (Rückseite)”. This piece was estimated € 600.000-800.000 and sold for € 3.480.000 in 2011.

HERMANN MAX PECHSTEIN Stürmisches Wetter an der Ostsee (Beschienene Wellen), 1919. Oil on canvas Estimate: € 350,000 / $ 395,500 Sold: € 700,000 / $ 790.999 (incl. 25% surcharge) Ketterer Kunst
HERMANN MAX PECHSTEIN Stürmisches Wetter an der Ostsee (Beschienene Wellen), 1919. Oil on canvas. Estimate: € 350,000 / $ 395,500 Sold: € 700,000 / $ 790.999 (incl. 25% surcharge) Ketterer Kunst

The name of the painting “Stürmisches Wetter an der Ostsee (Beschienene Wellen)” translates into “Stormy Weather at the Baltic Sea (Sunlit waves)” and it depicts a landscape with turbulent waters and the sun above.

Max Pechstein was a member of the artist group Die Brücke (The Bridge), which was founded with a manifesto published in 1906, with notable members suck as Erich Heckel (1883-1970), Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938), Emil Nolde (1867-1956). Die Brücke members were mostly self-taught artists, many of whom were former architecture students.

After the end of World War I, Max Pechstein (1881-1955) sought to regain his passion for an unconstrained existence in nature with his return to the coast of the Curonian Spit, just the way he had experienced it during his stay in the South Seas before the war.

Max Pechstein works seem to sell way over their price estimate at auctions lately. Just last month (May 2016), his two sided art work “Stillebel mit Akt, Kachel und Früchten (Recto); Kurische Waldlandschaft (Verso)” sold for $2,165,000 at Christie’s, while the estimate was only $900,000 – $1,200,000.