(1880 Krefeld - 1941 Kalkar)
Tiger fighting with a horse
Gouache on cardboard
49 x 60 cm / 19.3 x 23.6 in
Upper left dedication "Nach Delacroix / seinem lieben W. Kaesbach / z (zur) E. (Erinnerung) an Paris (19)11" and signature "H. Nauen".
This work is dedicated to the important art collector and museum director Walter Kaesbach, who was in contact with important artists of his time and promoted Expressionism. After working as an assistant to Ludwig Justi at the Berlin National Gallery from 1909, he volunteered for the medical service during the First World War. He led the medical team at the Ostend health collection point, where he was able to save a number of artist friends from being sent to the front by admitting them into the medical service. Heinrich Nauen, Erich Heckel, Max Beckmann and Otto Herbig were some of the beneficiaries. In 1922 the "Kunstverein der Dr. Walter Kaesbach Stiftung" was founded; the first foundation initially consisted of 97 paintings, watercolors and drawings with works by Erich Heckel, Heinrich Nauen, Lyonel Feininger, Emil Nolde and Christian Rohlfs. Many works of the foundation were confiscated in the course of the "Entartete Kunst" campaign and only few of them were returned to Mönchengladbach.
Between 1924 and 1933 Kaesbach was director of the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Deprived of his office in 1933 by the NS politics, he retired to Hemmenhofen on Lake Constance.