Louis Christian Hess

Juryfreie

Studies & Researches

THE PROPHECY OF THE “SPHINX”









Among the sculptures by Christian Hess, a nearly prophetic significance should be attached to this definitely peculiar “Sphinx with Lola’s face” modeled with the sand of the Baltic at Wismar (summer 1929): just as the wind swept away the grains over the shore after just a few hours had elapsed, a few years later in just the same way the Nazi ostracism endeavored to disperse Hess’ works, particularly the sculptures, since it was hard for the artist to transfer them during his movements in search of asylum from Switzerland to Sicily and vice versa.

ROME DISAPPEARED
BY CHRISTIAN HESS








This picture by Christian Hess, executed in Rome in 1930, reproduces a foreshortening of the “San Lorenzo quarter” that disappeared on July 19, 1943, following an air strike of the American bombers that caused three thousand victims. In fact, a study carried out in Rome by the Christian Hess Cultural Association succeeded in establishing that the only element of the picture that was still recognizable was the surviving smokestack that, in the postwar period, had been included, as an industrial archaeology relic, in the construction of the building of the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology of the National Research Center.
The gigantic smokestack was a part of the Wuhrer (the former Patzkoski) beer factory, located at the corner between Via degli Apuli and Via dei Sardi, which was hit by incendiary bombs and destroyed by the flames. Therefore, the title of this painting by Christian Hess shown in the Catalogue of the Rediscovery Exhibition (Palermo, 1974) as "Piazza Navona" (an area that, after all, had been free from industrial smokestacks) should be considered incorrect, being instead a spot in the San Lorenzo quarter as the German painter saw it in 1930 and painted it on canvas.

Recoveries

Uncovering themes