About the Work
Everything around the two girls is in motion. People and objects are dissolved into crystalline, geometric forms. Figures are duplicated, while colourful lines and glaring cones of light criss-cross the picture. Macke’s painting shows how impressed he was by the art of the Italian Futurists, who glorified speed and technology. At the same time, he took his cue from the abstracting formal language of the French Cubists. Macke painted only the two girls rather formally and in an almost classical way, thus, not letting them blend into the shimmering city life.
About the Acquisition
From 1900 onwards, the Frankfurt chemist and industrialist Carl Hagemann (1867‒1940) assembled one of the most important private collections of modern art. It included numerous paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints, especially by members of the artist group “Die Brücke”. After Carl Hagemann died in an accident during the Second World War, the then Städel director Ernst Holzinger arranged for Hagemann’s heirs to evacuate his collection with the museum’s collection. In gratitude, the family donated almost all of the works on paper to the Städel Museum in 1948. Further donations and permanent loans as well as purchases of paintings and watercolours from the Hagemann estate helped to compensate for the losses the museum had suffered in 1937 as part of the Nazi’s “Degenerate Art” campaign. Today, the Hagemann Collection forms the core of the Städel museum’s Expressionist collection.
This painting from the Hagemann Collection was acquired with help of the foundation of Carl Schaub (1851–1905), a man of independant means living in Frankfurt's West End. In 1905, he had established a foundation, which was appointed as heir to his estate. Its purpose was to acquire works of art for the Städel. Since the bequest of Johann Friedrich Städel, this was the largest legacy for art in Frankfurt.
