Auguste Macke

Macke’s brightly coloured scene shows people out for a walk in a park with a bridge. At the centre of the piece, a man reclines casually against the bough of a tree, in conversation with a woman holding a white parasol. Another woman and two men look over the side of the bridge. Macke paints the lush green foliage of the trees with sweeping, curved brushmarks that echo the curves of the woman’s sun umbrella, and even the path the couple stand on has a gently curved shape. This piece is one of several Expressionist paintings that Macke set in this location.

• Artist Auguste Macke
• Artwork Promenade
• Exhibition Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider
• Material FSC Certified paper
• Date of work 1913
• Credit Original: Auguste Macke Promenade, 1913 Oil paint on card 51 × 57 cm Lenbachhaus Munich, Donation of Bernhard and Elly Koehler, 1965

August Macke (1887 – 1914) was a German artist and member of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München and The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) Expressionist artist groups. Macke grew up in Cologne and Bonn, meeting his future wife Elisabeth Gerhardt at school. He studied at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art, where he developed an interest in printmaking, inspired by Japanese woodblock prints and art nouveau. Experimenting with stage design, Macke travelled to Italy and France, becoming influenced by impressionists and fauvists. While in Munich in 1910, Macke met Franz Marc and the two began to work together. Macke joined the NKVM and then DBR in 1911, exhibiting and contributing to the journal. After meeting Robert Delaunay, he began to work towards abstraction. February 1914 saw Macke, Paul Klee and Louis Moilliet go on a trip to Tunisia, but he was conscripted and killed in action later that year.