Paul Adolf Seehaus
Leuchtturm mit rotierenden Strahlen, 1913

Alfred Flechtheim and Paul Adolf Seehaus

Paul Adolf Seehaus belonged to the circle of the ‘Rheinische Expressionisten’. He participated in the Ausstellung Rheinischer Expressionisten in Bonn in 1913 organised by his friend August Macke. Elements of Fauvism dominated the work of Seehaus until 1912. Later his pictures showed the influence of Cubism and Futurism in their frequently dark palette and decisive tectonic structure. In his short career Paul Adolf Seehaus focussed primarily on the subject of the landscape. He found his motifs in the Rhine region as well as in remote parts of England and Ireland. His deep bond with nature was also permeated with a similar fascination for advances in modern technology. Nature, architecture and industrial scenes discretely merge together to form dynamic, visionary and poetic pictures.

One of Seehaus’ best-known pictures is ‚Leuchtturm mit rotierenden Strahlen’. The work was painted in 1913 and sold by the artist himself that same year for 100 Marks. It can only be supposed that Alfred Flechtheim was the buyer and first owner of the picture. Flechtheim showed this work and other paintings by Seehaus at the exhibition Paul Baum, Walter Ophey, Rheinische Expressionisten at his gallery in Düsseldorf in 1914. By this time at the latest the artist and gallery owner were working together without, however, it coming to any closer business relations. For this, more detailed information is lacking. Seehaus died in 1919. Flechtheim thereupon integrated works by Seehaus into four other exhibitions in 1919, 1927 and 1929 at his galleries in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Even though Flechtheim never organised a solo exhibition of Seehaus’ work, he obviously admired his paintings. ‚Leuchtturm mit rotierenden Stahlen’, for example, is often mentioned as being part of Flechtheim’s collection and hung for some time in Flechtheim’s private residence.