Bust portrait of a bearded man from the front

Details

Literature:

Sabarsky, Serge, Gustav Klimt. Drawings/Cento disegni/100 Zeichnungen, Mount Kisco/New York a.o. 1983/84, cat. no. 1;

Verzé, Luigi Virgin (ed.), in: KOS. Rivista di scienza e etica, Nuova Serie, no. 50, Milan, November 1989, with col. Fig. p. 39.

Exhibition:

Gustav Klimt, Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo 1981, cat. no. 18;

Gustav Klimt. 100 disegni/100 Zeichnungen/100 drawings/100 kreseb, Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome and others 1983-1997, cat. no. 1;

Gustav Klimt (Europalia 87 Austria), Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Brussels 1987, cat. no. 39;

Gustav Klimt 1862-1918; Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn/New York 1989;

Gustav Klimt, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence 1991/92, cat. no. 39;

Gustav Klimt: 150th Anniversary Celebration, Neue Galerie Museum, New York 2012;

Austrian Portraiture in the Early Twentieth Century, Neue Galerie Museum, New York 2014/15;

Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele: 1918 Centenary, Neue Galerie Museum, New York 2018/19.

Provenance:

Betty Richard Matsch Collection;

Serge Sabarsky Collection/Asset, New York, acquired from the aforementioned in 1980;

Collection/Foundation Vally Sabarsky, New York.

Descrizione

– Expressive portrait from Gustav Klimt’s early work

– Excellent example of his masterly draughtsmanship at the age of 17

– From the estate of the sculptor Betty Richard Matsch, daughter-in-law of Gustav Klimt’s fellow artist Franz Matsch

Only a few of these early portrait drawings by Gustav Klimt have survived, which show the unusual artistic mastery of the seventeen-year-old pupil. The “Portrait of a Bearded Man from the Front” was created in 1879 and thus dates from Gustav Klimt’s apprenticeship at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna, which he had been attending since 1876. In addition to the classic study of drawing using nude models and antique plaster casts, Klimt also trained his drawing skills at this time by making portraits of family members and people from his circle. Unfortunately, it is not known who the bearded man with his strong character is. Klimt works out the head in great detail and the frizzy hair of the luxuriant full beard in an almost photorealistic manner, using light and shadow to outline the individual features of the striking face.

The sheet comes from the estate of the American sculptor Betty Richard Matsch (1916-2005), who lived and worked in Vienna from 1953 to 1956 and presented her sculptures at exhibitions in the Künstlerhaus and the Staatsdruckerei. In 1953, Betty Richard married the Austrian diplomat Franz Matsch (1899-1973), Consul General and Permanent Representative of Austria to the UN in New York. His father, Franz Matsch senior (1861-1942), studied with the brothers Ernst and Gustav Klimt at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna at the end of the 1870s. Together they founded the “Künstler-Compagnie” and produced, among other things, the artistic interior decoration of the Vienna Burgtheater, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the University of Vienna. While Franz Matsch and Gustav Klimt were working on the so-called Faculty Paintings for the Great Ceremonial Hall of the University of Vienna, the two artists broke up.

The “Portrait of a Bearded Man from the Front” probably came into the possession of Franz Matsch senior during the two artists’ student days around 1880. Alice Strobl lists a very similar portrait from 1879 in the catalogue raisonné, which possibly depicts the same man and which Franz Matsch also portrayed (cf. Strobl 27, WVZ vol. 1, p. 24).