Franz Marc
Painted horses and deer in blue and yellow because he trusted animals more than people, and died at Verdun.
Franz Marc was born in Munich in 1880, studied theology before painting, and founded the Blaue Reiter with Kandinsky in 1911. He built a private colour theory in which blue was masculine and spiritual, yellow feminine and gentle, red brutal and material, and applied it to animals — horses, deer, foxes, cows — because he considered them purer than human beings and a better subject for painting. The work moved towards near-abstraction in 1913 and 1914. He was conscripted at the outbreak of war, named on a list of artists to be withdrawn from the front, and was killed by a shell splinter at Verdun in March 1916, aged thirty-six.
The output is small because the career was short, and the major paintings are almost entirely in museums, so what comes to market is chiefly works on paper — watercolours, gouaches, drawings and the postcards he sent to friends — and the woodcuts, which are few and are catalogued by Lankheit. Provenance across 1933 to 1945 must be checked, since Marc was declared degenerate and works were confiscated. Forgeries of the watercolours are a known problem, and expert opinion is normally required.
If you own a work by Franz Marc
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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