921 - Franz Werneke, woman reading, back view of a reading woman with blue cloth, from the artist's estate

Franz Werneke, woman reading, back view of a reading woman with blue cloth, from the artist's estate (1906 Quedlinburg to 1989 Düsseldorf), watercolour/paper, signed in pencil lower left, on the reverse round stamp "Nachlass Franz Werneke" with the life dates, back view of a young woman reading with short brown hair, back and shoulders bare, a blue cloth around the hips, half reclining against a brown cushion, legs drawn up, an open book on her knees, against a pink-violet ground, condition commensurate with age, crease with paint abrasion lower centre, image 28.5x34.5 cm (HxW), glazed, framed, frame chipped, frame width 4 cm Franz Werneke, born in Quedlinburg in 1906, studied from 1923 to 1925 at the Kunstgewerbeschule Essen under Josef Urbach and from 1925 to 1930 at the Düsseldorf Academy under Jan Thorn Prikker and Heinrich Campendonk. He worked in Düsseldorf as an illustrator, portrait draughtsman and designer of leaded glazing and mosaics for architectural art, and in 1954 he won first prize for the glass windows of the Duisburg municipal baths; his studio was in the Düsseldorf Künstlerhaus. His independent work consists mainly of watercolours with portraits, nudes, landscapes and still lifes; he belongs to the circle of the Junges Rheinland and to the so-called Lost Generation. The Werneke watercolour of the woman reading is a portrait of a woman by the Düsseldorf painter from his estate.