GALLERY 306
In the years after the World War I, Hermann and Margrit Rupf were able to resume the expansion of their collection. In the early 1920s, they purchased the latest works by Georges Braque, André Derain, Juan Gris, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee, and Louis Moillet, and just like prior to the war, during this period hardly any time elapsed between the creation of the works and their acquisition by the Rupfs.
Kahnweiler did not manage to keep all the artists with which he worked before the war at his gallery. However, he soon landed new artists such as Paul Klee, whom he represented abroad in 1933 thanks to Rupf’s mediation.
In this gallery, you can see the artistic evolution of Juan Gris from 1913 until 1925, and confront his production to Picasso’s 1913 Violin Hanging on the Wall (Violin). The installation of the works in this space allows to establish connections with other artists, such as Fernand Léger, whose painting Contrasts of Forms also dates from 1913, and Henri Laurens, whose works in this exhibition illustrate part of the evolution of his sculptural oeuvre, which after his early days as a Cubist, shifted to voluminous forms and the female figure.
Likewise, in this journey across the art of the 20th century, the abstract sculpture made of aluminum, Untitled, No. 85–065 (1985) mounted on the wall, is part of a series of modular works in bright colors created by Donald Judd between 1983 and 1990. All the modules are the same height, depth, and width, and in them the artist deliberately tried to avoid combinations of colors perceived as “harmonious” or “inharmonious.”