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50s Eugene Biel-Bienne Still Life with Flowers Painting Austrian

About the Item

One of a kind large-scale still life with flowers, the work of Eugene Biel-Bienne (1902-1969), a standard bearer of the Viennese school of expressionism, one of the most outstanding aspects of this artistic current. He was close to artists like Gustav Klimt or Egon Schiele. His life is essential to understand his work. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Vienna and completed a PhD in Art History at the University of Cologne. Vienna, awash with intellectual fervor, was fast becoming an unrivaled center of cultural activity. Freud, Mahler, Klimt, Loos, Meis van der Rohe, Hoffman, Herzl, Schoenberg and others were creating new schools of thought in fields such as psychoanalysis, linguistic philosophy, music, art... Actually, he began his career as a painter in Paris, where he was associated with the School of Paris in the 1930s and became interested in Sigmund Freud's theories of psychoanalysis. Only six years later he held his first solo exhibition. Furthermore, during his time in Paris, Biel became interested in the work of Kandinksy and began to experiment on his own lines of abstract movement (which he insisted on during his stay in the US). During his adolescence he suffered the consequences of the terrifying disaster of the First World War, and served in the French army during the Second. This war touched him especially closely, since he lost his two children and his wife was disabled when the car in which he was riding was machine-gunned. They had to be evacuated from France, and they marched on New York. Later, he also spent a few years in Caracas (Venezuela). He continued to paint for most of his life, and his painting was exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. These tragic events conditioned his work, full of suggestive drawings that portray the darkness and pessimism that lived inside him. This work is dated 1952, ten years after arriving in the US. It represents two vases with flowers that stand out for their saturated and contrasting colors on a dark background. It is a painting of fast and loose brushstrokes, very impasto and material, letting itself be carried away by the expression of the feelings and sensitivity of the artist, the maxim of the movement to which it is attached. Each brushstroke is expressive in itself. It is a very personal work, which demonstrates his tormented spirit. Still lifes or still lifes have their origin in Antiquity, although it was not until the 17th century when they achieved great success. From then on, many artists (Cézzane, Picasso) used the still life genre for their absolutely modern artistic experimentation, or because they were attracted by the symbology it contains. These works allude to the transitory nature of human existence. The flowers, which wither, are a clear symbol of the transience of life. It is curious that there are two vases with flowers that appear. Could this work be a memory of his two sons lost in the war? In short, Eugene Biel was one of the most promising expressionist authors in Europe, but his memory and his work have been largely unknown, despite the fact that his work has been exhibited in renowned museums such as the National Gallery in Berlin, the Victoria and The Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Belvedere in Vienna, the Musée 'Nationale D'Art Moderne in Paris... About Expressionism Expressionism was an avant-garde movement that emerged in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. From its beginnings, it was deeply marked by the tormented and convulsive climate of the time in which it emerged, and the desire for the false and ancient values that the artists wanted to bury. Although it affected all the arts, it stood out especially in painting and in the cinema. It is based on a distortion of reality to express it in a more subjective way, showing feelings and emotions, under a pessimistic filter. It was, therefore, a way of understanding art and an attitude towards it and life that arose as a reaction to naturalism, impressionism and its positivist nature at the end of the century. Technical advances, especially in the field of art, the appearance of photography and cinema, led the artist to consider the function of his work, which no longer consisted of imitating reality, since the new techniques did so more objective. "Expressionists", in the literal sense of the word, in terms of deformers of reality, can be found from much earlier (El Greco, Goya, Van Gogh...); However, the expressionist movement is defined in the pre-war atmosphere of Germany when various artists came together in search of a more personal art, in which the inner vision of the artist (expression) prevailed over the embodiment of reality (impression) Although it was a very broad movement, the first group that proclaimed this tendency arose around 1905 in Dresden, and was called El Puente (Die Brücke), led by Kirchner. The name refers to the idea of crossing, coming together between two opposite shores, a world that is left behind and another that one tries to reach. It was an art of condemnation and the condemned, which chose the revolt because it hated and rejected the inherited world. At that time, the war only confirmed the omens of crisis. This environment was the one that conditioned the beginning and development of the expressionist movement. The theme chosen by the artists used to be dark and sordid, always dealing with themes such as loneliness, misery, death, anguish... through loose and expressive brushstrokes of violent colors and with a clear rejection of mimesis, all as a reflection of the existentialist bitterness and the tragic vision of the human being and of life. In Austria, the expressionists received German influence, although Austrian expressionism stood out for the tension of its compositions. The young Austrian artists followed in the footsteps of Klimt in search of greater expressiveness, with works with existential themes and a philosophical and psychological background (life, death, illness, love, pain...). igned in the lower left corner. On the back it also presents the author's signature, along with the year. Dimensions: 114.5 x 153.5 cm.
  • Creator:
    Eugene Biel-Bienne (Artist)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 45.28 in (115 cm)Width: 60.63 in (154 cm)Depth: 0.79 in (2 cm)
  • Style:
    Expressionist (Of the Period)
  • Materials and Techniques:
  • Place of Origin:
  • Period:
  • Date of Manufacture:
    1952
  • Condition:
    Wear consistent with age and use.
  • Seller Location:
    Valladolid, ES
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU2943334707682
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