(1896 Antwerpen 1965)

Stadtvision. Circa 1925/26.

Oil on canvas.

Signed lower right: E. van Dooren.

132 x 142 cm.

Provenance:
- Estate of the artist.
- Obelisk Internationaler Kunsthandel, Heidelberg.
- Collection Elisabeth and Alfred Hoh, Fürth.
- Christie's, London, auction 25 June 2008, lot 447.
- Private property Switzerland, aquired at the above auction.

Exhibitions:
- Heidelberg 1991, Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Obelisk Internationaler Kunsthandel (with ill. p. 22-23).
- Altenburg 1998, Internationale Sprachen der Kunst: Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Skulpturen der Klassischen Moderne aus der Sammlung Hoh, Lindenau-Museum, August - October 1998, no. 15, p. 53 (with ill.); this exhibition was travelling to: Osnabrück, Kulturgeschichtliches Museum, Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, 14 February - 30 May 1999; Dortmund, Museum am Ostwall, December 1999 - 13 February 2000; Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 6 March - 9 July 2000.

Edmond van Dooren is an important representative of the Belgian avant-garde. In 1918 he met Theo van Doesburg and Tommaso Marinetti. That same year, together Jozef Peeters, he formed the "Moderne Kunst" group which published the influential magazine Het Overzicht (The Overview). The magazine was published until 1925 and functioned as a significant platform for progressive contemporary art. Van Dooren contributed important articles on the exhibitions of the group in the 1920s, promoting the works of Archipenko, Balla, Klee, Magritte and Schwitters amongst others. In the course of the contact with such innovative contemporary artists, Van Dooren’s aesthetic of geometric abstraction intensified in response to the modern and changing environment.

His paintings present futuristic visions, as seen in this fantastical cityscape, which evokes a sense of modern life as a triumphant and lively experience. The girders and ramps of its clashing, fragmented structures forcefully tower upwards, replicating the imposing geometry of modern architecture. The abstracted forms are based on the structural patterns and the frenetic pace of the rapidly changing and growing cities at that time.