Karl Hodina “The Birdcatcher” 1980s
Painting, Karl Hodina, “The Birdcatcher”, Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, oil on hardboard, 1980s, signed
Description
The painter, musician and illustrator Karl Hodina is considered a particularly versatile artist of the Austrian post-war period. Stylistically, he can be assigned to the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism, which also includes his contemporaries Ernst Fuchs and Arik Brauer. Hodina was awarded the Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria, among other honors.
His work “The Birdcatcher” was created around 1980 and captivates us with its fine brushstrokes, a tremendous richness of detail, as well as the extraordinary figure of the birdcatcher, who invites us to dive further into this enchanting picture. The landscape, with its lush vegetation and meandering river, is inspired by Hodina’s childhood in the Danube floodplains; an element that also appears in other works of the artist and radiates an extraordinary tranquility.
Artist
Dagobert Peche (St. Michael im Lungau 1887 – 1923 Vienna)was a versatile artist whose name is mainly associated with the ornamental phase of the Wiener Werkstätte from 1915 onwards.
Peche was born in 1887 in St. Michael in Lungau (Austria) and studied in Vienna from 1906 to 1911 at the Technical University and at the Academy of Fine Arts. Subsequently, the publisher Alexander Koch proved to be an important mentor, who recognized Peche’s talent as an ornamentalist at a very early age and enabled him to publish in his magazine “Kunst und Dekoration”.
After Peche had already been creating textile designs for the fabric department of the Wiener Werkstätte since around 1911, he was officially invited by Josef Hoffmann to work as an artist in the WW in 1915. There, thanks to his inexhaustible imagination, he became one of the most important sources of inspiration for all areas of craftsmanship. Many works of the Wiener Werkstätte would probably not be conceivable without his influence. From 1917 to 1919, he managed the Zurich branch of the Wiener Werkstätte. In 1920, when the Zurich Branch closed, he returned to the company headquarters in Vienna.
Peche supplied designs for wallpapers as well as fabric and designed objects in all sections of the Wiener Werkstätte, that is furniture, goldsmithing, ivory carving, mirror frames or metal goods. One of Peche’s characteristics is the playful ornamental richness that seems to take the respective objects away from their purpose. Contrary to the strict lines of J. Hoffmann and K. Moser in the early days of the Wiener Werkstätte, the second decade under Peche’s influence is characterized by playful, imaginative and floral ornamentation.
The design genius Dagobert Peche died in 1923 in Vienna, barely 36 years old.
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