Erika Giovanna Klien

1900 Borgo di Valsugana - 1957 New York

  • Title Eyes and Hands
  • Date c. 1922/1923
  • Technic black chalk on paper
  • Dimensions 26 x 18 cm
  • Provenance from the estate of the artist; private collection, Germany
  • Literature Christian N. Nebehay, Erika Giovanna Klien (1900 - 1975). Die Zeichnungen, Vienna 1987, p. 8, ill. 6; Marietta Mautner Markhof, Gemäldegalerie Michael Kovacek (ed.), Erika Giovanna Klien. Wien 1900 - 1957 New York, Vienna 2001, p. 30, ill. 4 Sylvia Kovacek GmbH (ed.) Erika Giovanna Klien. Wiener Kinetismus. Vienna 2022, p. 32 ed seq., ill. 4
Artist overview Inquire price

“Eyes and Hands“ belongs to a series of works, which is focused on the artists self-study of her own face. The prying, dark eyes – similar to the ones of the young artist - seem to multiply due to the eye form pulled to the middle and drifting to the lower left and hence evoke a state of intoxication and trance. One of the paintings called “Selbstportrait”, of the same series, follows the idea of distorted face parts on an even more “elaborate level”. That means, stylistically, there was less contraction, less realism. In the shown work this contraction is in a way programmatic. Hands and eyes - later only eyes - are used as building blocks for a completely free composition of the painting. Nevertheless, it is really important that the eyes are always to be recognised. Only then it becomes visible, that the integrity of the human figure is only secondary, while the experience of dissolving one’s personal identity is the focus.