(Oberndorf 1891–1958 Kitzbühel)
“Handgranatenwerfer”, 1919, signed Alf. Walde, oil-tempera on cardboard, 70 x 68 cm, framed

Registered:
Alfons Walde Archive, no. D-GW-318

Full page color illustration in:
Gert Ammann, Alfons Walde, Tyrolia-Verlag, 2001, p. 212

Exhibited and published in:
Egger-Lienz/Walde/Berg. Über das Land, 3 Ausstellungen/3 Maler/ 3 Orte, Museum der Stadt Lienz Schloss Bruck, Museum Kitzbühel, Sammlung Walde, Werner Berg Museum Bleiburg/Pliberk, Himmer Verlag 2012, p. 42 and full page ill. p. 212

Provenance:
Private Collection, Kitzbühel, formerly on loan to the Museum Kitzbühel
Dorotheum, Vienna, 26 November 2009, lot 501
Private Collection, Vienna
Dorotheum, Vienna, 15 March 2018, lot 47
Private Collection, Vienna

The hand grenade thrower shows the degree to which Walde adhered to reality in his painting motifs: it was less the aggression that fascinated Walde, but rather the bodily representation of tension in the same vein as Ferdinand Hodler's tree feller. Walde used the photo (Ammann 2001, p. 42) as a direct model, correcting the more exact representation concealed behind the head. It is embedded in an almost cubistically structured background...

Gert Ammann, in: Walde 2001