Richard Müller

Richard Müller, Archer IV, 1920

Richard Müller (1874-1954) was born in the Bohemian city of Tschirnitz (today Cernovice nad Ohra, Czech Republic) as the son of a weaver. His artistic talent was evident early on. In 1888, at the age of only 14, he was animated by a porcelain painter to enter the famous School of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, where he was immediately accepted. In 1890, Müller went on his own and without any financial support to Dresden. Here he was, although he had not yet reached the required age of entry, accepted at the Art Academy as one of the youngest students ever. In 1895 he met the graphic artist and sculptor Max Klinger, who inspired him to begin with etching.

Richard Müller, Self-Portrait, 1920

In 1900, now in Dresden as well known as Klinger, Müller was appointed professor at the Academy His students included George Grosz and Otto Dix. In 1933, shortly after Hitler had seized power, he became president of the Dresden Academy and, in such capacity, confirmed the dismissal of his former student Otto Dix from his professorship. But also Müller lost his professorship two years later because of "subversive tendencies in his art".

Richard Müller, Death as Arsonist, 1916

Nevertheless, Müller remained in high esteem as a painter under the Nazi régime. He exhibited several times at the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich's Haus der Deutschen Kunst, in 1939 with a pencil drawing of Hitler's birthplace. In the final phase of the Second World War, he was included in the Gottbegnadeten Liste of the most important artists, saving him from any war effort, even on the home front. Müller died in 1954 at the age of 80 in Dresden.

 

Richard Müller, Boy with Snake, 1912

Richard Müller, Meditation, 1900

Richard Müller, Archer II, 1918

Richard Müller, Message of Love, 1921

Oskar Kokoschka

I used to be too subjective, and I was always tempted to find my inner self in the exterior and dissipate my imagination on other people and on life. (Oskar Kokoschka)

 Oskar Kokoschka, Knight Errant (Self-Portrait), 1915

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) was born Pöchlarn, Lower Austria. He studied at the "Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule" (Vienna School of Arts and Crafts)  from 1905 to 1908. Kokoschka soon became one of the most important painters of expressionist art. After the "Kunstschau 1908" (Art Show 1908), Adolf Loos became one of his promoters, and Klimt even called Kokoschka the greatest talent of the young generation. Kokoschka's book "Die träumenden Knaben", published in 1908, was dedicated to Gustav Klimt. Originally staged in Vienna in 1909, Kokoschka's Murderer, The Hope of Women is generally regarded as the first Expressionist theatre play. As an early exponent of the avant-garde expressionist movement, he began to paint psychologically penetrating portraits of Viennese physicians, architects and artists, like this one of Adolf Loos:

 Oskar Kokoschka, Portrait of Adolf Loos, 1909

In 1912 Alma Mahler (former wife of composer Gustav Mahler) met the young painter, who was known as the enfant terrible of the Viennese art scene. Kokoschka was violent and unbridled, and the press derided him as "the wildest beast of all". Their liaison led on to an unrestrained amour fou, and Kokoschka´s consuming passion was soon transformed into subjugation, his jealousy into obsession. Kokoschka´s mother rushed to her son´s assistance and wrote to Alma: "If you see Oskar again, I´ll shoot you!" One of Kokoschka´s most famous paintings, "Die Windsbraut", testifies to this anguished time:

 

Oskar Kokoschka, Die Windsbraut (The Bride of the Wind), 1914. This painting shows Kokoschka and Alma Mahler as a shipwrecked pair in stormy seas. "He satisfied my life and he destroyed it", she said.

After their separation, Kokoschka volunteered for World War I, where he received a serious bayonet injury in Russia and a head shot in Galicia. In 1916, Kokoschka served as a war painter at the Italian Isonzo front, was diagnosed as "mentally unstable", and, in 1917, left Vienna for Dresden where he had received a professorship at the Art Academy until 1924. News of Alma´s marriage to architect Walter Gropius hurt him so much that, in deepest desperation, he ordered a life-size doll from a doll-maker in Munich which should resemble Alma in every detail, because he thought the artefact would console him for the final loss of his lover. Not surprisingly, the result was disappointing: a clumsy construction of fabric and wood-wool, which Kokoschka displayed at a wild party in his atelier in Dresden, in 1919. 

 Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait with Doll, 1922

Kokoschka's professorship in Dresden ended in 1924 and was followd by a seven-year period of travel in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East resulting in a number of robust, brilliantly coloured landscapes and figure pieces, painted with great freedom and exuberance. Many of them are views of harbours, mountains, and cities. Examples from this period include View of Cologne, Tower Bridge and Harbour of Marseilles:

 Oskar Kokoschka, The Harbour of Marseille, 1925

In 1931 Kokosschka returned to Vienna where he was commissioned by the Vienna City Administration to paint a Viennese motive. (He chose the view of Vienna from Wilhelminenberg). In 1934, due to the worsening political situation in Germany and Austria, Kokoschka moved to Prague where he was appointed professor at the Art Academy. His works were exhibited as "degenerate art" in the Third Reich which "motivated" Kokoschka to produce the following self-portrait:

 Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait as a Degenerate Artist, 1937

In 1938, when the Czechs began to mobilize for the expected invasion of the German Wehrmacht, Kokoschka fled to England and remained there during the war. In England, he produced his famous war paintings during World War II. Kokoschka became a British citizen in 1946 and only in 1978 would regain Austrian citizenship. He traveled briefly to the United States in 1947 before settling in Switzerland, where he lived the rest of his life. Oskar Kokoschka died 1980 in Montreux.

 Oskar Kokoschka, The Red Egg, 1940

Kokoschka had much in common with his contemporary Max Beckmann. Both maintained their independence from German Expressionism, yet they are now regarded as its supreme masters, who delved deeply into the art of past masters to develop unique individual styles. Both wrote eloquently of the need to develop the art of "seeing" (Kokoschka emphasized depth perception while Beckmann was concerned with mystical insight into the invisible realm), and both were masters of innovative oil painting techniques anchored in earlier traditions.

Oskar Kokoschka, Prague, Nostalgia, 1938. This was the first painting Kokoschka completed in London, after fleeing Czechoslovakia in 1938. Painted from memory, it features the famous view of Prague with the old Charles Bridge and cathedral in the background.

You can see more works of Oskar Kokoschka here on my Flickr page.

Max Beckmann - A Vision

I am seeking for the bridge which leans from the visible to the invisible through reality. (Max Beckmann)

 Max Beckmann, Galleria Umberto, 1925

We know that Mussolini was killed on April 28, 1945, by Italian partisans, and subsequently hung by his feet in the Piazzale Loreto in Milan. However, this scene was painted by Beckmann twenty years before Mussolini's death! Erhard Göpel, an art critic who often visited Beckmann in his exile in wartime Amsterdam, gives the following account: 

"When, in 1925, he promenaded through the Galleria Umberto in Naples, he saw the flood of fascism rising, he saw carabinieri saving drowning people and a body hung upside down by ropes. He saw this in broad daylight. When Mussolini's fall was reported, he fetched the painting from the closet and showed it in his studio. He considered it a vision even before he knew that he had also foreseen the manner of the dictator's end hanging head down."

Benito Mussolini (2nd from left) and his lover Clara Petacci (3rd from left) exposed in Milan on April 29th, 1945.

Galleria Umberto contains many odd features, the strangest of which is the crystal ball hanging from the glass ceiling. Did Beckmann have clairvoyance in mind when he invented this translucent globe? Consciously, he probably wanted only to satirize the Italy of 1925. The fascists' murder of Giacomo Matteotti was widely interpreted as a storm signal just then, and Beckmann saw that gay vacationland Italy' symbolized by the mandolin, the bather, and the tootling blonde, was swamped by political repression. An Italian flag is drowning in the foreground.

 

Ludwig Meidner, Apocalyptic Landscape, 1912


Locksley Hall
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1835)

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
 

Expressionist art offers several examples of this uncanny "second sight," the most literal being Ludwig Meidner's views of bombed and burning cities painted in 1913 (see above). And Beckmann pictured the Frankfurt synagogue in 1919 with its walls slanting as if they might topple at any moment:

 Max Beckmann, Die Synagoge in Frankfurt am Main, 1919

You can see more of Max Beckmann's works here on my Flickr page.

Alfons Walde

 Alfons Walde, Self-Portrait, 1936

Alfons Walde (1891-1958) grew up in Kitzbühel (a famous Austrian winter sports resort) where his father was a school director. He went to school in Innsbruck and, from 1910 to 1914, he studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna and at the same time continued his education as a painter. In Vienna he found an important supporter in the architect Robert Oerley, who made the Vienna art scene accessible for him. 

 Alfons Walde, Tänzerinnen (Dancers), 1920

At that time, Walde moved in artistic circles that included Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, and he was also influenced by Ferdinand Hodler. In 1911 Walde had his first exhibition in Innsbruck, and in 1913 he was already represented with four canvases at an exhibition of the Vienna Secession. From 1914 to 1917 Walde participated as a Tyrolean Kaiserschütze in the high mountains battles of World War I. 

Alfons Walde, Portrait of Peter Scheider, c. 1919. Peter Scheider won his Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresia for the storming of the 2432 metre high Monticello Ridge on  13th of June 1918 whilst commanding the Kaiserschützen of High Mountain Company 17.

After the war Walde continued his studies at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, but soon returned to Kitzbühl. In Kitzbühl he now fully devoted himself to painting and participated again had exhibitions at the Secession and the Wiener Künstlerhaus. In 1924 he received the first and second prize at the competition "Winterbilder" (winter pictures) and took part at the Biennale Romana in Rome in 1925. 

 Alfons Walde, Ski Jumper, c. 1924

Around 1928 Walde finally found his own characteristic style that gave expression to the Tyrolean mountain scenery - particularly the living winter landscapes - and its robust people. Together with Rudolf Stolz from Bozen he received the first prize for the design of the arrangement of the main station's hall in Innsbruck (destroyed in World War II). 

Alfons Walde, Town in Snow, c. 1925

The late 1930s were a difficult time for Walde: In 1938 the Gestapo searched his house several times and he was imprisoned for two months. In 1956 Walde was appointed  professor as a late official recognition of his artistic work. His last years were marked by strokes of fate and illnesses. In his work, he once more turned to painting and flower paintings, nude drawings and small winter and sport motifs in tempera. Alfons Walde died in Kitzbühl in 1958.

 Alfons Walde, Tauernhof, 1933

Today, there is a growing demand for Alfons Walde's paintings: "Tauernhof" (shown above) fetched an astonishing € 330.000 when auctioned 2007 in Vienna. You can see more paintings by Walde (and other Austrian interwar artists) here at Gallerie Hassfurther. Also, Art Inconnu shows an impressive series of his works. Further paintings and sketches you find here on my Flickr page.

Alfons Walde, Ascent of the Skiers, 1931

Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch - Duel

 Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch, Duel, 1932

In the early 1930s Herbert von Reyl-Hanisch intensified his criticism of civilization. He regarded industrialization as the destroyer of humane values and promoter of aggression and aimed to hold up the classical ideal as a contrast to this, as a kind of purification for the soul. The fighter on the left, who steps forward boldly, while his opponent with a knife adopts a defensive pose. The woman, whose presence suggests that she is the reason for the duel, is watching the scene with cool composure. In a preparatory drawing at the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum in Bregenz, the man on the right is shown in bourgeois attire, creating a greater contrast with his opponent who looks more like a worke. In the same year as this picture, Reyl-Hanisch painted Pursuit, a work in a similar style which shows the fighting between Social Democrats and National Socialists in Schwechat on 14 April 1932, after which the latter had to be taken away under police protection.

Marcel Ronay

 Marcel Ronay, Sailor and Girl, 1929

Marcel Ronay was born 1910 in Budapest to a Jewish Romanian father and Catholic mother. His family moved to Berlin and then Vienna. In 1928 Ronay joined the master carver's class under Eugene Steinhof at the Kuntsgewerbeschule in Vienna. In 1931 he was nominated for the  Austrian State Prize for Art but one of his works was judged too erotic and this cost him the award.

 

Marcel Ronay, Nuns, 1929

After exhibiting and travelling through Italy, Ronay arrived in England in 1936. In addition to his painting, Ronay began designing and making porcelain costume jewellery. He showed at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and, in 1952, at the International Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture. Ronay moved to Essex but in 1986 had a solo show at Ben Uri Art Gallery, London and another in 1995 at John Denham Gallery, Hampstead. Ronay also featured in a 1995 travelling exhibition of inter-war German painters at Den Haag and Brussells and a 1998 exhibition of the Brabant Collection at Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Gallery at Bodensee. 

 Marcel Ronay, New Ron, c. 1930

Ben Uri Gallery in London holds a number of Ronay paintings in its permanent collection. You can see more of Ronay's works here on his homepage.

Albert Birkle

Albert Birkle, Waiting at the Bridge, 1931

I have previously written about the painter Albert Birkle. You can see more works of him in my new Flickr set. The works above and below were scanned by Vanessa; you shouldn't miss her marvelous Weimar collection.

Albert Birkle, Untitled, 1920s