Lot 240: Bildnis Waldemar Unger II

Richard Gerstl (1883-1908)
Bildnis Waldemar Unger II
oil on canvas
17¾ x 14 in. (45 x 35.6 cm.)
Painted circa 1905-1906

Vienna, Richard Gerstl Secession , 1966, no. 3.
Innsbruck, Tiroler Kunstpavillon, Richard Gerstl , June - July 1966, no. 3.
Vienna, Kunstforum der Bank Austria, Richard Gerstl , 1993 (illustrated p. 53); this exhibition later travelled to Zurich, Kunsthaus.
Milan, Palazzo Reale, L'Anima e il Volto, Ritratto e Fisiognomica da Leonardo a Bacon , October 1998 - March 1999, no. 295.
Biasca, Museo Casa del Cavalier Pellanda, Atelier della pittura del Novecento , May - August 2004.

Dr Rudolf Leopold, Vienna.
Galleria del Levante, Munich and Milan.
Acquired from the above and thence by descent to the present owner.

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE ITALIAN COLLECTOR


Despite the small body of surviving works and his early death at the age of 25, Richard Gerstl has emerged as one of the most important Viennese artists from the turn of the Twentieth Century. He did not achieve success during his lifetime nor did he publicly exhibit his work, but large scale posthumous exhibitions such as Richard Gerstl Secession , which took place in Vienna in 1966 and in which the present work was featured, have gained him the wider recognition he so rightly deserved. An early protagonist of Austrian Expressionism, his favoured theme was figure pictures. The present portrait of Waldemar Unger is a highly evocative depiction of this young lawyer, who worked in the court chambers of Rudolf Hauenschild. A close friend of the Gerstl family, he was named legal representative to the heirs of Gerstl's father, Emil on 25 October 1912. The present work,the second portrait Gerstl completed of his friend, was the subject of a letter written by the artist to Unger in on 25 January 1906: 'Dear Walter, unfortunately I cannot come on Friday at 4 o'clock. Can you possibly come to me on Saturday at 9 in the morning? I would like to to finally finish your painting. In case you cannot, please write to me. With a kiss to your wife's hand, and all best wishes, yours Richard Gerstl.'

Born in 1883 to a wealthy middle-class Viennese family, Gerstl was a rebellious youth. He was expelled from the prestigious Pianisten Gymnasium and did not stay long at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, where his professor was the strict disciplinarian Christian Griepenkerl. He continued his training under the Hungarian painter Simon Hollósy in Nagybánya during the summers of 1900 and 1901, and his artistic style recalled the influence of Munch. However Gerstl did not seek out fellow artists, preferring the company of composers and musicians. This would ultimately be his downfall. In 1906, his meeting with the innovative and highly influential composer, Arnold Schönberg, led to an instant mutual appreciation. Gerstl spent the summers of 1907 and 1908 with the Schönberg family in Traunstein near Gmunden, and began a passionate love affair with Mathile Schönberg, the composer's wife, eight years his senior. They ran away together, but Mathilde quickly returned to her husband, fearful of his suicide threats. Lost and abandoned, Gerstl set fire to his letters and many of his works on 4 November 1908, killing himself later that night with a knife wound to the heart.