£1,800

Signed, dated, and inscribed on the reverse: ‘To my dear Tanie, Oct: 7 … 1917’
Oil on canvas, 18 × 24 in. (45.7 × 61 cm.)
Provenance:The Fine Art Society

This early work by Sauter clearly shows the influence of his father Georg,
a painter who specialised in atmospheric, often misty landscapes (‘paysage
brumeux’, according to E. Bénezit, Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire
des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Paris 1976 edn).

The view is probably in the vicinity of Alexandra Palace in London, where
father and son were interned as ‘enemy aliens’ at this time. A number of
Rudolph Sauter’s Alexandra Palace drawings are in the collection of the
Imperial War Museum.
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Signed; pastel on buff paper, 14½ × 22½ in. (36.8 × 57.2 cm.)

Sauter visited New York in the late 1920s in the company of his aged uncle the writer John Galsworthy (best known for his Forsyte Saga), and returned in the 1930s. While London was the world’s largest metropolis with a population of 7.7 million, New York closely rivalled it and seemed more dynamic with its impressive skyscrapers, an American invention
.
Despite the trauma of the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, which heralded the Depression years of the 1930s, the relentless pace of building skyscrapers hardly abated. Sauter has captured this frenetic, upward-soaring activity, rejecting the classic view at the southern end of Manhattan for a lowish viewpoint somewhere near the south of Central Park. The unmistakable silvery silhouette of the exuberant Chrysler Building is on the left of the picture. Built between 1927 and 1930 for the automobile magnate Walter Chrysler to a design of William Van Allen, it soon became an internationally recognised symbol of the Art Deco style. Actually, its glistening, flamboyantly jazzy stainless-steel crown, illuminated at night, was a late decision, adding 180 ft to its height but, by incorporating hub-caps and so on in its design, it pleased the publicityconscious Walter Chrysler. On the right of the picture is the equally famous, though more sombre, 102-storey Empire State Building, at 1250 ft the tallest building in the world when completed in 1931 (in record time); it overtook the Chrysler and remained unsurpassed for four decades, until the construction of the ill-fated World Trade Center (1977). By contrast the twin spires in the middle ground are those of the Neo-gothic St Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, designed by James Renwick, Jr. The 330-ft height of the spires, inspired by Cologne and completed in 1888, would rise above the skyline of most cities, but in New York they illustrate just how much its skyscrapers dwarfed conventional buildings.

Many of the other skyscrapers seen in this view were demolished post-war,
when the New York skyline changed significantly.

Although best known as a figurative artist, later in life Sauter produced a series of abstract paintings in pastel.

We are grateful to Michael Barker for assistance.

Thumbnail panels:

Rudolph Sauter 1895–1977

Painter, printmaker, illustrator and poet. Father was George Sauter, an artist from Bavaria. His mother was Lilian Galsworthy, daughter of John Galsworthy the novelist and creator of the Forsyte Saga. He had strong literary interests and illustrated John Galsworthy's works. He painted a portrait of Galsworthy in 1927. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and the Pastel Society. When his work was shown at the Salon in Paris, he was awarded an Honourable Mention. His work was shown widely in the provinces and in America. He had one man shows in London and New York.

His work is held by the National Portrait Gallery, the RWA and the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. Much of his work was destroyed by a fire in the 1980s. There is a significant collection in private hands in South Africa. Although mostly a figurative painter, late in life he dis a seies of pastel abstracts. He celebrated his eightieth birthday with a glider flight. He lived at FORT WILLIAM, Butterow, near Stroud, Gloucestershire.