It is our great pleasure to announce the upcoming exhibition „Hermann Hesse – The Poet’s Watercolours“, which will show over 75 watercolours and illustrated handwritten poems, many of which for the first time to the public.

Hesse – the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946 – is most famous for his acclaimed major works „Siddhartha“ (1922), „ Steppenwolf“ (1927) and „The Glass Bead Game“ (1943). There has always been a strong following for his paintings as well though. Only recently has the Museum Leopold in Vienna held a major retrospective of his paintings.

After suffering several bad strokes of faith during World War I, Hesse relocates to the Ticino region in Switzerland in 1919 where he discovers his passion and great talent for painting.

At first the autodidact uses pencil drawing and watercolour to only illustrate his hand-written poems. His first full scale watercolours of the 1920’s still relate to fantasy places taken from his poems or short stories.

The Swiss painter Louis Moillet, a close friend who famously travelled to Tunisia with Blauer Reiter group artists August Macke and Paul Klee in 1914, introduces him to the beauty of painting outdoors. From 1922 his style gradually changes from the previous almost cubist to a very confident expressionist style that he uses to capture the idyllic scenery, the mountains, the lakes, little villages, flowers and gardens around Lake Lugano.

The fully illustrated catalogue can be ordered through our website

or by email for EUR 20 including postage within the EU or EUR 30 for worldwide shipments.  

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Please contact Nadine Mueller or Veronika Pogany at mail@ludorff.com or +49-211-326566 for further information.