Walter Sauer

(Saint-Gilles 1889 – 1927 Algiers)

Pensive

Signed and dated lower right 19 WS 20/ Walter Sauer

Charcoal and pencil on waxed paper

21 x 15 inches (63.5 x 38.1 cm)

Illustrated:
Massant, Michel, Walter Sauer 1889-1927, Bern’Art, 2001, p. 48.

Walter Sauer’s career as a professional artist fundamentally began in 1917 when he signed a contract with the art dealer and gallerist Isy Brachot. The agreement was loosely based on a patronage system in which Sauer pledged to produce several works on a monthly basis in exchange for a salary. Brachot was extremely demanding, and the arrangement led Sauer to exhibit as many as one hundred drawings per exhibition. This was no easy task for a fragile man who suffered from severe lung problems his entire life.

 In 1917 Sauer met Mathilde Dressen at a party, a beautiful woman who thereafter became his model, mistress, and in January of 1918 his wife. Shortly after their union she began to exhibit symptoms of psychological afflictions that would likely be diagnosed today as manic depression or bipolar disorder. Mathilde was repeatedly hospitalized, and the stress of the situation clearly affected Sauer’s work at the time. Due to the extensive amount of time he spent with his ailing wife and his deep desire to understand her state of mind, the artist worked to capture emotional turmoil in his figure drawings. This devastating time in Sauer’s life resulted in his uncanny ability to portray the psychology of his sitters.

Pensive is a beautiful example of Walter Sauer’s ongoing interest in religious and Symbolist motifs. He was likely introduced to themes of mysticism by his esteemed teachers at the Belgian Academy of Fine Art Jean Delville and Emile Fabry, both who had participated in Joséphin Péladan’s Salon de la Rose + Croix.  Undoubtedly the Salon’s devotion to beauty and spirituality inspired Sauer’s lifelong dedication to the subject of the psychological female portrait. The symbol of the veil carries with it a rich variety of meanings, often as a metaphor for chastity and purity, or an allusion to the act of exposing the truth, of lifting the veil. Drapery adorns the women in Sauer’s drawings from as early as 1917 and appears throughout the artist’s oeuvre until his early death in 1927. Fascinated by the female psyche, he would often return to subjects repeatedly, experimenting with subtle changes in body language and the placement of garments.

By 1920 Walter Sauer had experienced repeated success with his evocative drawings of women. That year he earned great acclaim for his exhibition at Galerie Isy Brachot, thereby catching the attention of the Bruton Gallery in London, who arranged to take a collection of works on consignment. Several of the works included a series of women in black veils, as in the present work. The arrangement with Bruton Gallery unfortunately ended poorly for Sauer, as the show failed to sell as well as expected. Even worse, the owner of the gallery refused to send payment or even return the unsold works to the artist. Legal action proved futile, as Belgian court jurisdiction did not extend to business in the United Kingdom.