HELENE FUNKE (Chemnitz 1869 - 1957 Vienna), Girl with Lilies, around 1930

HELENE FUNKE*
(Chemnitz 1869 - 1957 Vienna)
Girl with Lilies, around 1930
oil/cardboard/wood, 40 x 29,5 cm
depicted in the catalogue raisonné Helene Funke, p.236 (Frauenkopf mit Lilien)
Provenance: Fine Arts Widder, private property Linz, private property Vienna

ESTIMATE °€ 15.000 - 30.000
START € 15.000

German-Austrian painter and graphic artist of the 20th century. Important artist of modernism, is described as a pioneer of emancipation and feminism because of the depictions of women. Born in Chemnitz, studied together with Gabriele Münter at the Munich Ladies Academy from 1899. 1905 to 1913 in Paris like Paula Modersohn-Becker and Käthe Kollwitz. 1913 Moves to Vienna. Member of the artist group Bewegung or Freie Bewegung, member of the group Wiener Frauenkunst and member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. Exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Autom/Autumn Salon with Henri Matisse, George Braque and Maurice de Vlaminck. Contact with the Fauves, involvement with Impressionism, Fauvism and Expressionism. In Vienna, participated in exhibitions of the Vienna Secession, the Hagenbund, the Künstlerhaus and the Kunstschau. Created confident portrayals of women, figural scenes, portraits of women, nudes, and still lifes. Bathers, dancers, Arcadian landscapes, metropolitan scenes in theaters with influences from Asiatica and ancient Egyptian mummy portraits. Color explosions with high luminosity and great expressiveness comparable to Helene Taussig. Subtle depictions of the human psyche comparable to Egon Schiele. 2007 first museum retrospective at Lentos in Linz, 2019 appreciation of the artist in the exhibition City of Women at the Austrian Gallery Belvedere.

In 1913 Helene Funke moved to Vienna, where she lived until her death. Despite the criticism she received from domestic art critics, she presented her work in several exhibitions and was eventually even awarded the Austrian State Prize and the title of professor. In the course of her artistic career, she often had to struggle with discrimination against her male artist colleagues, which is why she became involved in the emancipation movement early on and stood up for equal rights for women. In Vienna, she was a member of the "Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs" (Association of Women Artists of Austria) and, as a corresponding member from Paris, participated in its first exhibition in 1910. Funke was also represented with thirteen paintings in the second show in 1911 in the Zedlitzhalle, the exhibition house of the Hagenbund. Her modern style, influenced by the Fauves, caused a sensation and was appreciated by fellow Austrian artists as a sign of progress. The depictions of women in Helene Funke's work, which play an essential role in her oeuvre, must be seen against this background. Especially in her portraits she always tried to express the feelings of the sitter. In Girl with Lilies, the artist concentrates the motif in a narrow section of the picture. From the left edge, the girl leans into the picture and, through her hand holding a bunch of lilies, forms the frame of the composition downwards and towards the right edge. No details distract the viewer from the essentials, while the girl is seen smelling the blossoms with her head tilted and her gaze melancholy.

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