163 - Erika Giovanna Klien* (Borgo Valsugana 1900 - 1957 New York)

Erika Giovanna Klien* (Borgo Valsugana 1900 - 1957 New York) Turbine chalk/paper 31 x 48 cm SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 7000 - 12000 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 7000 The Austrian-American artist Erika Giovanna Klien studied at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts from 1919 to 1924 under Viktor Schufinsky, Franz Čižek, Rudolf von Larisch, and Reinhold Klaus. She was particularly influenced by the study of ornamental forms and by Čižek’s class on children's art. It was in his classes that the movement known as Viennese Kineticism emerged, and Klien became its most significant representative. Along with My Ullmann and Elisabeth Karlinsky, she was one of Čižek’s most radical students; Johanna Reismayr-Fritsche and Gertrude Neuwirth are also associated with this circle. Broncia Koller-Pinell later took lessons from Klien. Kineticism treated movement as a central element of artistic composition, combining influences from Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism. In doing so, Klien engaged with international avant-garde movements—such as the Futurist studies of dynamism by Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, and Gino Severini, as well as the Cubist-influenced aesthetics of color and simultaneity developed by Sonia and Robert Delaunay. Fernand Léger, Alexandra Exter, Oskar Schlemmer, and László Moholy-Nagy also serve as important points of comparison regarding the interplay of movement, the human figure, the stage, space, and modern technology. Even during her training, Klien participated in various exhibitions and developed a keen interest in drama and marionette theater. Encouraged by the writer and dancer Leopold Wolfgang Rochowanski and his wife, the dancer Katja Kandinsky, she attended drama school and worked on a kinetic marionette theater project. In 1925, she completed her training as an art educator under Franz Čižek and set up a studio in Purkersdorf. She earned her living as a commercial artist, creating designs that included toys. From 1926 to 1928, Klien taught at the Elizabeth Duncan School in Klessheim. In 1929, she moved to New York and taught at the Stuyvesant School, the Dalton School, the New School for Social Research, and the Spence School. Alongside her teaching, she established a reputation through her theoretical writings on art education. A trip to New Mexico in 1934 led her to engage with Indigenous culture; at the same time, she began a series of abstract linocuts depicting the flight of birds. Klien’s artistic interests encompassed the movement of people, animals, and plants, as well as technical devices and modes of transport, such as the New York subway. Around 1934, she created two wood reliefs featuring dancers to decorate her own study. A label on the reverse refers to a sales exhibition at the Spence School, where Klien taught until 1940 and where she presented the two reliefs alongside works by her students. 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.