HERBERT GURSCHNER (Innsbruck 1901 - 1975 London), Village Square, 1932

HERBERT GURSCHNER*
(Innsbruck 1901 - 1975 London)
Village Square, 1932
color woodcut/paper, 12,2 x 13,5 cm
signed H. Gurschner, dated 1932 and inscribed Orig. Holzschnitt, Handdruck
Provenance: private estate Austria

ESTIMATE °€ 1.000 - 1.500
START € 800

Austrian painter and stage designer of the 20th century especially the interwar period. Representatives of Tyrolean modernism such as Artur Nikodem, Ernst Nepo, Wilhelm N. Prachensky, Hans Tyrol-Weber, etc. Stylistic development between Expressionism and New Objectivity. Nephew of the sculptors Emil and Gustav Gurschner. Attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Innsbruck and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1918 to 1920. In 1920 he lived in Mühlau in Innsbruck, exhibited with the Mühlau Circle around Alfons Schnegg, Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Nepo. Early 1920s landscapes and cityscapes from travels through Tyrol, Salzburg and Italy. 1924 Married the English noblewoman Dolores Cherwadsky-Damarkow, established contacts with London artist and collector circles. 1929 first exhibition at the London Fine Art Society. Contacts with aristocratic, diplomatic and business circles, exhibitions in London and New York. Married his second wife Brenda Davidoff. Created landscapes, portraits and religious representations figure conception comparable to Albin Egger-Lienz, Tyrolean landscape artists such as Alfons Walde and Oskar Mulley. Color woodcuts with Tyrolean motifs, churches, folk costumes comparable to Robert Sauerwein and Sidonius Schrom.

Gurschner's talent for painting became apparent at an early age. In 1918 he was accepted as the youngest student at the Academy in Munich. From 1920 he lived in the Mühlau district of Innsbruck and exhibited together with the other artists of the "Mühlau Circle", Nepo, Schnegg and Lehnert. From 1925 onwards he travelled extensively in Italy, Spain and France, exhibited at the Venice Biennale and had an acclaimed solo show at the London Fine Art Society in 1929. In 1931, the Tate Gallery purchased his "Annunciation". Gurschner lived from numerous portrait commissions and thus moved in aristocratic, diplomatic and business circles. In 1938 he went into exile in London, where he met his second wife Brenda. After the war, Gurschner turned to stage design and worked for Covent Garden Opera, the Globe and Hammersmith Theatre.
The popular Tyrolean painter Herbert Gurschner made many a collector's heart beat faster with his prints created in the mid-1920s. Typical scenes from everyday Tyrolean life, such as church walks, village scenes or landscapes, are worked out by Gurschner in the technique of woodcut and linocut, in which differently coloured sticks or plates are printed on top of each other. Smaller sections are often coloured by hand by the artist himself. In this way, he creates not only an exciting depth effect in these small formats, but also a great liveliness. The artist finds many of his motifs in Innsbruck and the surrounding area and on his travels to South Tyrol and Italy. His second wife, an English noblewoman, is financially independent and opens up many contacts for him in the world of the nobility, business and theatre, which provide him with invitations and well-paid portrait commissions. Although the village life that Gurschner still knew from his youth and early adulthood was becoming more and more distant, it was precisely the picturesque mountain worlds and their inhabitants that fascinated foreign buyers. Thus, pictures of his Tyrolean homeland, such as the "Dorftratsch" and the "Dorfplatz", continue to emerge.
The narrative woodcut "Dorfplatz" takes us into the world of Tyrolean village life. In "Dorfplatz", the painter looks from an elevated vantage point at the bustle of churchgoers around the church square and its surroundings. The people have dressed up in their festive costumes: The men are wearing traditional costumes and Tyrolean hats, the women are carrying out their dirndls. Gurschner, like his artist colleague Alfons Walde, knows about the sales-promoting dimension of such episodes from Tyrolean folk life. He is often brought stylistically close to Alfons Walde. He shares with him the steep view of the scenery, but replaces the pictorial rhythm with an additive composition. In contrast to Walde, he creates more densely packed groups of people, which give his pictures a more narrative character. His motifs are less monumental and crudely constructed, appear more agile and correspond in their originality to the coloured wood and linoleum cuts that helped Gurschner to become widely known in Tyrol and England.

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