4396 - Gustav Decker, Small Town by the River

Gustav Decker, Small Town by the River An autumnal townscape looking out over a river towards venerable houses behind a town wall, dominated by an imposing church building, slightly impasto, sketch-like and brisk, incorporating unpainted areas of the support, a veduta painting executed with broad brushstrokes in muted colours, oil on canvas, c. 1915, signed ‘G. Decker’, fragmentary label preserved on the back of the stretcher: ‘Große Berliner Kunstausstellung 191? …’, signs of age, very beautifully framed in a contemporary style, inner dimensions approx. 50.5 x 67 cm. Artist’s biography: German architect, civil engineer and painter (born probably between 1881 and after 1930), exhibited architectural paintings at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition from 1914 to 1916, worked in Aachen, mentioned between 1925 and 1930 as a friend of Carl Grossberg (1894, Elberfeld - died 1940 near Laon), with whom he travelled to Amsterdam and Zandvoort in 1925; mentioned as working in Cologne in 1927, Source: Catalogues of the ‘Great Berlin Art Exhibition’ and the internet.