228 - Franz Sedlacek (Wroclaw 1891 - 1945 MIA)

Franz Sedlacek (Wroclaw 1891 - 1945 MIA) Pursuit/Fall from Hell, 1918 indian ink/paper 28 x 28,5 cm dated 1918, monogrammed FS SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 7000 - 12000 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 7000 Franz Sedlacek was an Austrian painter and chemist, considered one of the most significant representatives of New Objectivity and Magical Realism in Austria. Born in Breslau and raised in Linz, he began his studies in Vienna in 1910—initially in architecture, later in chemistry—while developing as a self-taught painter. In 1913, he co-founded the Linz artists' association MAERZ alongside Anton Lutz, Franz and Klemens Brosch, and Heinz Bitzan; he began working at the Technical Museum in Vienna in 1921 and became a member of the Vienna Secession in 1927. His oil painting, characterized by the precision of the Old Masters, combines romantic and fantastical landscapes, winter scenes, floral still lifes, and mysterious dream worlds with grotesque creatures, technical elements, and an often somber, surreal atmosphere. Beyond the influence of Flemish-Dutch painting—specifically the work of Joachim Patinier, Joos de Momper, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder—he was shaped by Romanticism and Austrian Modernism; stylistically, he is associated with artists such as Alfred Kubin, Herbert Reyl-Hanisch, Zoran Mušič, Oskar Mulley, Alfred Stolz, and Alfred Hrdlicka. Sedlacek’s distinctive blend of meticulous realism and fantastical estrangement marks him as a key figure in Austrian Fantastic Art, New Objectivity, and interwar modernism. His uncanny landscapes and grotesque scenarios evoke Alfred Kubin, while the atmospheric intensity and existential dimension of his landscapes suggest art-historical parallels with Zoran Mušič; the expressive, often dark Austrian pictorial tradition links him to Oskar Mulley, Alfred Stolz, and Alfred Hrdlicka—as well as to the macabre literature of Edgar Allan Poe. 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.