Lot 556: KNUPFER Benes (Benedikt Julius) (12. 4. 1844

KNUPFER Benes (Benedikt Julius) (12. 4. 1844 Frydstejn near Sychrov - 18. 11. 1910 at sea) Tired wave Oil on wood, 15 x 40 cm, framed, undated, signed lower right. The painting renders the artist's chief subject - the sea and mythological figures (Nymphs). The painter thus reacts to contemporary Symbolist themes and with view to form to Impressionist and post-Impressionist trends which is apparent especially in his choice of colours and work with paint. Czech painter, he studied at the Academy of Arts in Prague and under professor Piloty in Munich. He was a neo-Romantic painter, he is known for his seascapes and paintings rendering fairy-tale and mythological themes, many of his sea scenes reveal erotic, Symbolist features. At the end of the century he turned to Symbolism and was influenced by Art Nouveau decorative vocabulary. From the 1880s he exhibited his work at the Salons in Paris, in Berlin, Munich and Vienna. See T 1/503, TB 21/37, B 6/258, NECVU 1/363.