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Lot Essay
The Arbeitsgruppe Alfons Walde (Gert Ammann, Peter Konzert, Carl Kraus, Michael Walde-Berger) has confirmed the authenticity of this work, which will be included in the forthcoming Alfons Walde Werkverzeichnis.
In the middle of the 1920s Alfons Walde became more daring and caused a sensation with a number of large scale paintings. A spectacular example of this period in the artist’s oeuvre is the present Einsame Hausung, a work not only large in format but also monumental in effect. It depicts a mountain farm at the top of a plateau just in front of a steep gorge and with a snow-littered rock face rising in the background. We get a sense of the severity of the climate and the sublimely beautiful yet dangerous mountain landscape. In contrast, a mother cradling her child is sitting in a sun-lit spot outside the farmhouse, adding a warm element to the composition. The motif of mother and child is a recurring one in Walde’s paintings of this period, with other examples today in the Leopold Museum, Vienna.
Typically for Walde, he takes the viewer up close to the scene, placing us at an extremely low angle, the farm houses and rock face appear monumental. The contrast between large dark shadows and sun-lit areas is so strong that the painting is remarkably abstract, a quality also noticeable in the depiction of the mountain in the background.
In the middle of the 1920s Alfons Walde became more daring and caused a sensation with a number of large scale paintings. A spectacular example of this period in the artist’s oeuvre is the present Einsame Hausung, a work not only large in format but also monumental in effect. It depicts a mountain farm at the top of a plateau just in front of a steep gorge and with a snow-littered rock face rising in the background. We get a sense of the severity of the climate and the sublimely beautiful yet dangerous mountain landscape. In contrast, a mother cradling her child is sitting in a sun-lit spot outside the farmhouse, adding a warm element to the composition. The motif of mother and child is a recurring one in Walde’s paintings of this period, with other examples today in the Leopold Museum, Vienna.
Typically for Walde, he takes the viewer up close to the scene, placing us at an extremely low angle, the farm houses and rock face appear monumental. The contrast between large dark shadows and sun-lit areas is so strong that the painting is remarkably abstract, a quality also noticeable in the depiction of the mountain in the background.