34 - Albert Birkle

Albert Birkle Portrait einer Dame (Elisabeth Starosta) Circa 1922 Watercolour, gouache and chalk on artist's board with textured surface. 48.9 x 29 cm. Framed. Signed 'a.birkle' in greenish blue lower right. Verso on fragment of old cardboard backing (?) dated "20 Dez. 1921" in handwriting. - In very good condition with fresh colours. We would like to thank Roswita and Viktor Pontzen, Archiv und Werkbetreuung Albert Birkle, Salzburg, for scientific advice. The work is recorded in the internal works catalogue under number 696. Provenance Galerie Heinze, Salzburg, acquired there in the 1980s; Private collection, Austria Albert Birkle’s first marriage was to Elisabeth “Else” Starosta; she graduated from the school of applied arts in Hanover and worked as a graphic artist. The two met around 1922 and their wedding followed in 1924. Birkle depicted his elegant, emancipated partner in numerous portraits, but few are as subtle and multi-layered as this work. Else Starosta is presented as an aloof and enigmatic woman possessing a great deal of self-confidence. The more time viewers devote to this image, the more complex the impression made by its sitter becomes. She is depicted in a way that makes it difficult to determine her age; like her carefully arranged hairdo, her almost gaunt, angular face and emphatically arched eyebrows imbue her with a severe and uncompromising character. Her curved lips, together with her dimples and slightly tilted head, simultaneously reveal a sensual component. The gaze emerging from beneath her heavy eyelids is also difficult to interpret: somewhat languidly tranquil and, at the same time, haughty as well as benignly tolerant. The high-necked blouse stands in stark contrast to the stole elegantly draped around her shoulders. Using mixed media on a textured ground, Birkle has generated a vibrant, light and particularly charming surface. The cool blue and black tones of the hair, blouse and background as well as the multi-hued, blackberry-coloured stole dramatically frame the face, which is modelled in warm flesh tones and forms the painting’s compositional and chromatic focus.