Helene Funke (Chemnitz 1869-1957 Vienna)

Eva

1926

oil on composite board

49,5 x 40 cm 

signed upper left HFunke

verso titled Eva and signed H. Funke

framed

framed dimensions 64,5 x 54,3 x 4,4 cm (25 3/8 x 21 3/8 x 1 ¾ inches)

Provenance:  ex coll. Prof. Dr. Rudolf Leopold

Exhibition History:

"Vienna 1900: Birth of Modernism," Leopold Museum, Vienna, long-term continuing loan from April 16, 2022

Discussion:

The painter and printmaker Helene Funke was born in Chemnitz, Germany, in 1869.  From 1899, she studied painting at the Münchner Damenakademie [Munich Ladies’ Academy].  From 1905 to 1913, she lived and studied in Paris and southern France, where she was influenced by the Fauves, and then moved to Vienna where she resided until her death.

A pioneering modernist, known especially for her distinctive representations of the feminine, Funke was a member of a number of important artist associations, including the Deutscher Künstlerbund [Association of German Artists] and the Wiener Frauenkunst [Viennese Women’s Art], among others.  From 1904 to 1938, she exhibited widely: in Paris, she exhibited several times in the Salon des Indépendants; in Vienna, with the Secession and the Hagenbund; and in Germany at many venues, in Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Hamburg.  In 1928, Funke received the Austrian State Prize for her painting “Tobias and the Angel.”  Her circle of friends included art historian Ninon Dolbin, the third wife of author Hermann Hesse.

In 1957, at age 87, she died in her apartment in Vienna, impoverished and largely forgotten -- until her rediscovery in the late 1990s.

                                                                                                    -- Jack Daulton