Title: The Creature from Mars, 1906 (Alfred Kubin)

Inventory number: K-66
Dimensions/material: 41.5 × 35.3 cm, pastel chalk and gouache on cardboard

Characteristics: titled and signed on the reverse

Summary of Provenance

The gouache *The Being from Mars* (1906) was dedicated by Alfred Kubin—as indicated by the artist’s inscription on the reverse—in May 1917 to his longtime friend Marianne Caroline Grafe (1892–1951), née Weil. She had been married since 1914 to the Viennese poet Felix Grafe (1888–1942), a longtime friend and collector of Kubin’s work. In early 1923, Marianne and Felix Grafe divorced, and Marianne Grafe married Adolf Haeutler (1872–1938) as her second husband. She lived in Vienna with him and her two sons, Innozenz and Lukas. Marianne Haeutler built up a large collection of Kubin’s works, as evidenced by an extensive Kubin exhibition held at the Albertina in the spring of 1937 to mark the artist’s 60th birthday. She was one of the exhibition’s most important lenders. The lists of watercolors, drawings, and prints from Marianne Haeutler’s collection, compiled by Director Josef Blick, also mention Alfred Kubin’s gouache *The Being from Mars*; however, the work was not included in the exhibition. The gouache was therefore still in Marianne Haeutler’s possession as of April 1937. After the so-called “Anschluss” in March 1938, Marianne Haeutler and her sons, as Jews, were among those persecuted by the Nazi regime. Marianne Haeutler emigrated on October 5, 1938, to join her son Innozenz Grafe in Oxford. Before her escape, she had submitted an export application for her art collection to the Federal Monuments Office in Vienna in September 1938. The list of artworks intended for export from Austria includes various watercolors, drawings, prints, portfolios, and other artworks; however, since the artists’ names and titles of the works are not specified, it is not possible to identify them with certainty. The export application was approved by the Federal Monuments Office. It can therefore be assumed that Marianne Haeutler was able to take all the artworks for which export had been requested with her to Oxford on October 5, 1938. Marianne Haeutler returned to Vienna after the end of World War II, where she died on February 3, 1951, in a Viennese nursing home. On October 18, 2000, Heidi Horten acquired the gouache *The Being from Mars* from an Austrian private collection at the Sotheby’s “German & Austrian Art” auction in London.

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