662 - Max Friedrich Helas, Seated, introspective old man, oil painting, framed

Max Friedrich Helas, Seated, introspective old man, oil painting, framed Max Friedrich Helas, 1875 - Dresden - 1949, German painter, here: An expressive study of a seated, introspective old man in the manner of an ancient philosopher, bare-chested and clad in a white loincloth; oil on canvas on cardboard, 55 x 45 cm, signed on the right About the artist: Max Helas studied at the Dresden School of Applied Arts and the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts from 1902 to 1907. His teachers included Carl Bantzer, Richard Müller and Otto Gussmann. Helas served in the First World War and was represented in 1916 at the Ernst Arnold Gallery in the ‘Second Exhibition of Dresden Artists in Military Service’. After the war ended, Helas moved to Vienna in 1921, where he worked as an assistant in ornamentation at the Vienna University of Technology until 1924. Back in Dresden, he subsequently devoted himself increasingly to church restoration; in 1928, under the direction of the architect Woldemar Kandler, he restored the interior paintings of the Frauenkirche in Meissen and later played a key role in the restoration of the paintings in St Anne’s Church.In 1946, Max Friedrich Helas took part in the ‘Saxon Artists’ art exhibition in Dresden with two works. A large part of his artistic estate is held by the Saxony State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.