Fidus (Luebeck 1868-1948 Woltersdorf bei Berlin), also known as Hugo Hoeppener

"Totenleib meiner Tochter" ["Dead Body of my Daughter"]

1918

pen in black ink and pale blue and green watercolor on paper

26,2 x 34,7 cm

dated and signed lower right: "am 4. Heuert 1918. Fidus" ["on 4 July (in Old German) 1918. Fidus"]

Verso on old label, probably in the artist's hand: 

"fidus (Hugo Höppener) / Totenleib meiner Tochter / unverkäuflich / Versicherungswert 11 000 [aus "10 000" korrigiert] Mk"; 

["fidus (Hugo Höppener) / dead body of my daughter / unsaleable / insurance value 11 000 [from" 10 000 "corrected] Mk"].

Provenance:

Sammlung Emly Wilhelmi, Hannover

Sammlung Otto Kohfahl, Hannover  

In 1900, Fidus married Elsa Knorr and with her had his second daughter, Trude, later known as Drude.  His wife Elsa died of heart disease in 1915; and then, tragically, only a few years later, he lost his 17-year-old daughter Trude, a victim of the influenza epidemic in Berlin.

Publication History:

Kai Buchholz, et al., eds., Die Lebensreform: Entwürfe zur Neugestaltung von Leben und Kunst um 1900 (Darmstadt: Verlag Häusser, 2001) (Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt exhibition catalogue), Band I, ill. at Tafel XIII, pg. 357.

Karl-Ludwig Barkhausen, "Fidus in der Lüneburger Heide," www.academia.edu, 2019, ill. pg. 38.  https://www.academia.edu/39919929/Fidus_in_der_L%C3%BCneburger_Heide