Robert Engels Art

After GUSTAV KLIMT (1862-1918) THESEUS UND MINOTAURUS, 1898, final design submission for poster advertising the first exhibition of the Vienna Secession, (In Mascha, no. 8) As a cele...

after EGON SCHIELE (1890-1918) SHAW ODER DIE IRONIE POSTER, C. 1912, (In Mascha, no. 18) Schiele’s poster is an advertisement for a lecture to be given ...

Mädchen am Fenster. 1906-08. Color lithograph printed on smooth card stock. Full margins. Tipped into a later presentaion folder, signed by the artist in pencil, on the recto. Published by the Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna, with the printed postcard text on verso. Among Kokoschka's earliest prints were a series of 14 postcards, the current work and the following lot that he produced for the Wiener Werkstätte. Wingler/Welz 4. Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits...

after Carl Otto Czeschka, (1878-1960), Austrian A leading member of the Vienna Secession and later the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop), Carl Otto Czeschka was a vital figu...

Nude is a color lithograph on ivory paper, created by the Italian artist Umberto Brunelleschi (Montemurlo 1879- Paris 1949). Illustration for “Tales and Short Stories” by La Fontain...

Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art work) by designing architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphics, and tapestries meant to coordinate every detail of an environment. His work transcended the imitative decorative arts of earlier eras and helped to define Modernism for generations to come. Moser achieved a remarkable balance between intellectual structure (often geometric) and hedonistic luxury. Collaborating with Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, the artist was an editor and active contributor to Ver Sacrum, (Sacred Spring), the journal of the Viennese Secession that was so prized for its aesthetics and high quality production that it was considered a work of art. The magazine featured drawings and designs in the Jugendstil style (Youth) along with literary contributions from distinguished writers from across Europe. It quickly disseminated both the spirit and the style of the Secession. In 1903 Moser and Hoffmann founded and led the Wiener Werkstatte (Viennese Workshop) a collective of artisans that produced elegant decorative arts items, not as industrial prototypes but for the purpose of sale to the public. The plan, as idealistic then as now, was to elevate the lives of consumers by means of beautiful and useful interior surroundings. Moser’s influence has endured throughout the century. His design sensibility is evident from the mid-century modern furniture of the 1950s and ‘60s to the psychedelic rock posters...

The Kiss, no. 1 from the fifth installment of Das Werk Gustav Klimts Undoubtedly Klimt’s best known and most reproduced images, this printed version of The Kiss is the only one with which Klimt was directly involved. Unveiled at Vienna’s Kunstschau 1908, and saved for the fifth and final delivery of Das Werk, The Kiss marks a triumph in Klimt’s career and represents a culmination of many themes in his oeuvre up to that point. After all of the controversy surrounding the State’s prior rejection of the University murals commissioned from Klimt, the Ministry of Education reversed their policy toward the artist with a show of wholehearted support by purchasing for the Osterreichische Galerie BelvedereThe Kiss while it still hung in the Kunstschau exhibit. Considered in relation to the eight multicolored collotypes which preceded its print debut in the Das Werk portfolio, The Kiss literally embraces all which came before it. The golden seaweed dangling in tresses from the lovers’ feet harkens back to Water Snakes I and II. The bed of flowers evokes the settings Klimt created in both The Golden Knight and The Sunflower. In fact, this image sprung out of a particularly happy summer spent in the company of Klimt’s lover, Emilie Floge...

Jules Chéret Folies-Bergère (L'Arc-en-Ciel), 1895 Stone ithograph Printed signature in the plate On vellum Size 39 x 29 cm (c. 15.3 x 11.4") INFORMATION : Plate 21 of "Les Maîtres...

As an artist trained in the applied arts, Gustav Klimt valued all forms of art, including the graphic arts. This final design from 1896 for inclusion in Allegorien published by Gerlach & Schenk demonstrates respect for artistic precedent and for a wide range of media and technique. The publication was printed in an unknown number of copies. Klimt’s rendering in latin of the title, “SCVLPTVR.,” with three-dimensional effect on the wall, is a figurative allusion to this medium as well as a literal reference to Ancient Rome. By doing the same with his signature and date in roman numerals on the right hand side of the image, Klimt places himself, The Artist, firmly in this linear and legitimizing context of art history and as its modern standard-bearer. Playing on Classical mythology and the story of Pygmalion, in which a statue comes to life, Klimt presents his modern Venus holding an apple. Klimt’s Venus exhibits a curvilinear softness; there are no angles. Klimt deftly shows the possibilities in a graphic image to give life to dark, wavy hair and tenderness to swelling breasts and belly. To further emphasize the allegory of thriving modern art, he contrasts his Venus with the cold, hard ancient classical head whose eyes are vacuous and whose hair is but a stylized mass of curls. Klimt’s living Venus stands in front of the large bust and large classical pillar upon which is a sculpture of a Sphinx and a Greek Attic bust. As if a gallery to represent sculpture’s “best of” through the ages, the upper horizontal panel includes bust depictions in marble, cast metal and wood...

Contributors to Gerlach & Schenk’s publications valued design and innovation in the graphic arts just as much as they examined allegories as subject matter for exploration. Here, Gus...

Koloman Moser (1868 –1918), AUSTRIAN Instead of applying his flair and art education solely to painting, Koloman Moser embodied the idea of Gesamt Kunstwerk (all-embracing art work) by designing architecture, furniture, jewelry, graphics, and tapestries meant to coordinate every detail of an environment. His work transcended the imitative decorative arts of earlier eras and helped to define Modernism for generations to come. Moser achieved a remarkable balance between intellectual structure (often geometric) and hedonistic luxury. Collaborating with Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann, the artist was an editor and active contributor to Ver Sacrum, (Sacred Spring), the journal of the Viennese Secession that was so prized for its aesthetics and high quality production that it was considered a work of art. The magazine featured drawings and designs in the Jugendstil style (Youth) along with literary contributions from distinguished writers from across Europe. It quickly disseminated both the spirit and the style of the Secession. In 1903 Moser and Hoffmann founded and led the Wiener Werkstatte (Viennese Workshop) a collective of artisans that produced elegant decorative arts items, not as industrial prototypes but for the purpose of sale to the public. The plan, as idealistic then as now, was to elevate the lives of consumers by means of beautiful and useful interior surroundings. Moser’s influence has endured throughout the century. His design sensibility is evident from the mid-century modern furniture of the 1950s and ‘60s to the psychedelic rock posters...

after Carl Otto Czeschka, (1878-1960), Austrian A leading member of the Vienna Secession and later the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop), Carl Otto Czeschka was a vital figu...