Oil on canvas. Signed in lower right. 92 x 133.5 cm.
John Knittel Collection (1891-1970), Switzerland (ever since family-owned)
Hans Unger is one of the central, albeit hitherto less recognized, representatives of Symbolism and Art Nouveau in Germany at the turn of the century. Originally trained as a decorative painter at the Royal Court Theater in Dresden, he began to study at the Dresden Art Academy in Friedrich Preller's landscape class, after which he became acquainted with the brighter palette of Impressionism on his travels through Italy and through the exchange with the Goppeln School. Unger's artistic activity is particularly fascinating for the variety of techniques and materials he employs between Symbolism, Impressionism and Art Nouveau, producing poster art, as well as illustrations for magazines such as "PAN" and "Jugend", as well as stage curtains and mosaics. In 1897, the 'Gemäldegalerie' in Dresden bought his work "Die Muse", which earned him greater fame as a painter. In the same year, Unger went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian for six months. His contact with the works of French Symbolist painters such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau, whose dreamy, contemplative female figures would also influence Unger's work in the future, may well have been formative. Unger often staged them in an allegorical context, for example as the sun, spring or nature. Unger often combines elements of impressionistic, pastose light painting and the beauty of female forms in Art Nouveau in large formats. In Unger's work, the female figures are not individuals, but always symbols of the power and mysteriousness of the feminine. [KT]
Lot Details
Oil on canvas. Signed in lower right. 92 x 133.5 cm.
John Knittel Collection (1891-1970), Switzerland (ever since family-owned)
Hans Unger is one of the central, albeit hitherto less recognized, representatives of Symbolism and Art Nouveau in Germany at the turn of the century. Originally trained as a decorative painter at the Royal Court Theater in Dresden, he began to study at the Dresden Art Academy in Friedrich Preller's landscape class, after which he became acquainted with the brighter palette of Impressionism on his travels through Italy and through the exchange with the Goppeln School. Unger's artistic activity is particularly fascinating for the variety of techniques and materials he employs between Symbolism, Impressionism and Art Nouveau, producing poster art, as well as illustrations for magazines such as "PAN" and "Jugend", as well as stage curtains and mosaics. In 1897, the 'Gemäldegalerie' in Dresden bought his work "Die Muse", which earned him greater fame as a painter. In the same year, Unger went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian for six months. His contact with the works of French Symbolist painters such as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau, whose dreamy, contemplative female figures would also influence Unger's work in the future, may well have been formative. Unger often staged them in an allegorical context, for example as the sun, spring or nature. Unger often combines elements of impressionistic, pastose light painting and the beauty of female forms in Art Nouveau in large formats. In Unger's work, the female figures are not individuals, but always symbols of the power and mysteriousness of the feminine. [KT]
