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People by the Blue Lake

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Look at the faces, left as flat patches of red and orange, then follow the red ground from the girl’s feet up into the red trunk at right.

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Macke painted this walk by a lake in 1913. A woman, a girl and a man in a bowler hat stand under the trees, their faces left as plain patches of color. In these years his friendship with Robert Delaunay was shaping his work; a year later Macke was dead, killed in the first weeks of the war.

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oil on canvas · overall: 60.32 × 48.26 cm · National Gallery of Art · The Blue Rider

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Details and source

Museum title
People by the Blue Lake
Artist
August Macke German, 1887 - 1914
Date
1913
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 60.32 × 48.26 cm (23 3/4 × 19 in.) framed: 78.74 × 66.68 × 5.08 cm (31 × 26 1/4 × 2 in.)
Credit line
Collection of Arnold and Joan Saltzman
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
National Gallery of Art

Artist’s life 1887–1914

The Blue Rider c. 1911–1914

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

People by the Blue Lake · August Macke, 1913
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People by the Blue Lake, August Macke

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