Lot Details
Lot 183
Joseph Floch
Austrian, 1895-1977
LADY IN GREEN DRESS, 1955
Oil on canvasboard laid to masonite
24 x 18 inches (61.0 x 45.7 cm.)
Unframed
Provenance:
Property of a Midwest Museum
Literature:
Karl Pallauf, Joseph Floch - Leben Und Werk 1894-1977, Vienna, 2000, p.320, no.532, ill.
Born in Vienna in 1894, Floch was a student at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna before moving to Holland to work. At the age of 22 he returned to Vienna where he was given his first one man show. Known as a painter of interiors, there is no doubt that during his stay in Holland he was greatly influenced by the works of the Dutch old masters, namely Vermeer and Rembrandt. In Vienna he learned of Cezanne, whose impact can easily be seen in Floch's planes of color. He was perhaps most inspired by the work of the 19th century German artist Han von Harees (1837 - 1887).
In the early 1920s, and already aware of the work Modernists, he moved to Paris where he showed at Berthe Weill's gallery. Weill's stable of artists at this time included Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, Vlaminck, Gromaire and Pascin. Although in Paris during the years of artistic upheaval and rebellion against past traditions in art, Floch did not follow his contemporaries who denied their past. Rather he was able to use what he had learned from his predecessors as well as his peers to create works of art that spoke to both Modernists and Traditionalists. His melding of the past with the present Cubist, Fauvist and Surrealist schools, gave his paintings a unique quality among the Modernists that set him apart from, but did not exclude him from his contemporaries. Floch remained in Paris until the threat from Germany became too great and he made the decision to move to New York. He was to remain here for the remainder of his life.
Floch's works maintain a certain quietude reminiscent of the interiors of Edward Hopper. His figures, even among the company of others, remain isolated and express a feeling of longing for something unfulfilled. This aura of melancholy, expressed through his somber, yet rich colors, dominated his canvases throughout his career. His work was cubist in structure, yet portray emotions teetering on the surreal. After moving to New York his palette intensified having experienced Manhattan's frenetic ruggedness. Ever concerned with order, purity and beauty, his paintings were poetic visions of people and places familiar to us, yet not of our world.
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