899 - Georg Andreas Speck, Architect G. and His Wife, double portrait at the drawing table, c. 1950

Georg Andreas Speck, Architect G. and His Wife, double portrait at the drawing table, c. 1950 Oil on canvas, probably around 1950, signed upper right. Verso on the stretcher a label inscribed by hand with the title 'Architekt G. und seine Frau' and, as the name of the exhibitor, 'G. A. Speck'. Double portrait of a couple at a drawing table: the woman in a white lace blouse, the man in a grey suit with a red tie, both leaning over an unrolled plan; he holds a drawing pencil and a cigarette. The conception sober and realistic, the flesh tones finely modelled, the background laid in flat areas of broken grey and green. Age-appropriate good condition. Image 56.5 x 85 cm (HxW), framed, frame bumped, frame width 7 cm. Georg Andreas Speck (1904 Magdeburg - 1978 ibid.) studied at the Academy for Book Design and Graphic Arts in Leipzig under Hans Soltmann and Paul Horst-Schulze. After 1945 he was represented at the exhibitions of the artists' association in the Magdeburg region, in 1958 he showed work at the IV German Art Exhibition in Dresden and afterwards worked in Berlin. His architecture-related works include a mural in Magdeburg central station and a sgraffito on Wilhelm-Pieck-Allee; his estate is held by the Kulturhistorisches Museum Magdeburg. Double portraits of working couples are among the characteristic pictorial subjects of German painting in the post-war years.