Lot 196: Liebespaar (The lovers)

Emil Krausz (Austrian, 1897-1930) Liebespaar (The lovers) signed and dated lower right 'Emil/Krauss/1925' (lower right) oil on canvas 37¾ x 31½ in. (96 x 80 cm.) Painted in 1925

Emil Krausz studied painting in at the Vienna Academy, and later under Alexander Archipenko, in Berlin. He travelled extensively, settling in Sicily for most of the period from 1923-1929, before moving to Paris in 1930.

Krausz remained in close touch with cultural developments in his home country and, in 1925, the year the present work was painted, he joined the Secessionist movement in Graz. Echoing the avantgarde beliefs of its counterpart in Vienna, which had been founded at the turn of the century under the presidency of Gustav Klimt, the Graz Secessionists expressed their modern ideals in a flat, and highly geometric style, which defined itself in opposition to the grandiose and elaborate aesthetic of late 19th century Vienna.