71 - Georg Merkel* (Lviv 1881 - 1976 Vienna)

Georg Merkel* (Lviv 1881 - 1976 Vienna) Olympia and her servant, around 1919 oil/wood 21 x 25,5 cm signed Merkel SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE °€ 6000 - 12000 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE °€ 6000 Georg Merkel was an Austrian painter and artist whose work is rooted in Viennese Modernism and moves between Expressionism, portraiture, and a sensitive, figurative approach to painting. Born in 1881 in Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine) into poverty, he began as a decorative painter; only through the support of a friend was he able to study at the Academy in Krakow from 1903 to 1905, where he first became acquainted with the Lemberg artists' colony. His further training in Vienna led him to the Vienna Secession and the Künstlerhaus Wien (Vienna Artists' House), whose debate between tradition and modernity shaped his aesthetic orientation. Merkel lived in Vienna during the interwar period, was a member of the Hagenbund (Hagen League), and maintained friendly contact with the Zinkenbach artists' colony, whose rural idylls and simple lifestyles provided both subject matter and atmosphere for his works. From 1905 to 1908 and again from 1909 to 1914, he lived in Paris, where he immersed himself in French classicism, the work of Paul Cézanne, and the paintings of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. He volunteered for service in the First World War, and a head injury left him blind for several months. His recovery and the regaining of his sight profoundly influenced his later work, in which portraiture and figurative compositions played a central role. Within the Viennese Modernist movement, he belonged to a wider circle of artists, including Rudolf Bacher, Josef Engelhart, Anton Faistauer, Egon Schiele, Elias Canetti (whose encounter with Merkel is described in "Das Augenspiel"), and Louise Merkel-Romeé, to whom he was married. Defamed as a "degenerate artist" in 1938, Merkel emigrated via Czechoslovakia to France, was interned there and lived in southern France before returning to the Viennese art scene in 1945: a member and later honorary member of the Vienna Secession and recipient of the City of Vienna Prize from 1961, he combined formal clarity, emotional closeness to the figures and a quietly condensed, sometimes almost lyrical painting style in his late work. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.