Artists - Part 23

Koloman Moser

We saw three paintings by Koloman Moser in my previous post on the story of Siegfried.   Koloman 'Kolo' Moser (1868-1918) was an Austrian artist and designer.  Above is a self-portrait, 1916.

He was not just a painter.  He designed ceramics, glassware, jewelry, furniture (such as the chair above) and more.  He even designed postage stamps for the Austrian government.

He was a co-founder of the Vienna Secession, an art movement that was an offshoot of the Art Nouveau style.  Most of Koloman's graphic work is in the Art Nouveau style, with elaborate detail and exaggerated flowing lines.  That's not the style of this 1901 graphic, called "The Thousand Ravens," but I thought this was interesting because its interlocking shapes anticipate the tessellations of artist Maurits Escher 50 years later.

The style of Moser's paintings, however, remained clean and simple.  Although male nudes constitute a minority of his work, there were several of them.  Above, the figure in Feldeinsamkeit (Field Loneliness) 1912-1913, seems to be floating in the clouds.

Male nude, c. 1913.

Allegorie Jüngling, (Allegory young man) c. 1914.

This is a version of Der Wanderer, c. 1915.  We saw two other versions in my post on Siegfried, where at least one of them represented the god Wotan.

This composition is called Clash of the Titans, 1915.

This is Figure Study of Tristan, 1915  It's a preliminary sketch for his painting Tristan and Isolde, in which Tristan appears clothed but in the same pose.

Stehender Jüngling (Standing Youth), 1915.

Kolo Moser is still held in high regard by the Austrians.  In 2018, on the 100th anniversary of his death,  Austria issued this stamp featuring his painting Frühling (Spring).