(Innsbruck 1901–1975)
Bean Ingram, 1928, by the artist to the lower right corner: Bean Ingram habe ich gemalt 1928 mit einer Maske weil dass Leben verlangt Masken Herbert Gurschner, oil on canvas, on canvas, 107 x 67.5 cm, framed

Label on the reverse:
Herbert Gurschner Tirol with added no. “43”

Full-page colour illustration:
Herbert Gurschner. Ein Tiroler in London, issued by Claudia Widder/Roland Widder, Mit Beiträgen von Gert Ammann, Carl Kraus, Roland Widder, Tyrolia-Verlag 2000, p. 112

Exhibited:
Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919–1933, Tate Modern, London, 30 July 2018 – 14 July 2019, exh. cat. with ill. p. 57

Provenance:
Bonhams Knightsbridge, 29 November 1995, lot 106
im Kinsky, Tuesday 16 May 2006, lot 117
European Private Collection
Ketterer Kunst, 11 December 2020, lot 268

The fading of classical religious subjects around 1930 led to a new subject gaining significance for Gurschner (peasant symbolic images, as mentioned, continued to be important to him). He became a portraitist in demand among European high society thanks to the contacts he had made through his wife and his move to England. His clients were drawn from the nobility, business, and cultural spheres – and had a penchant for the unconventional. What they expected and received from Gurschner was not an average salon picture, but a portrait with symbolic “charge” influenced by New-Objectivity. Similarly to his self-portraits, of which he says he painted around ten in 1928–32 alone, he spiritualises the sitters through overlong proportions and the enigmatically alien atmosphere typical of his style. Gurschner devotes special attention to the hands, which, like various background motifs, are important elements of characterisation. ...

Carl Kraus from the cited literature