Richard Gerstl: life and works

Richard Gerstl (14 September 1883 – 4 November 1908) was an Austrian painter and draughtsman known for his expressive psychologically insightful portraits, his deficiency of essential acclaim during his lifetime, and his affair like the wife of Arnold Schoenberg which led to his suicide.

Richard Gerstl was born in a prosperous civil relatives to Emil Gerstl, a Jewish merchant, and Maria Pfeiffer, a non-Jewish woman.

Early in his life, Gerstl decided to become an artist, much to the dismay of his father. After performing arts poorly in theoretical and being annoyed to depart the famed Piaristengymnasium in Vienna consequently of “disciplinary difficulties,” his financially stable parents provided him in imitation of private tutors. In 1898, at the age of fifteen, Gerstl was all the rage into the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he studied below the notoriously opinionated and hard Christian Griepenkerl. Gerstl began to disown the style of the Vienna Secession and what he felt was unnatural art. This eventually prompted his vocal professor to proclaim, “The artifice you paint, I piss in the snow!”

Frustrated behind the lack of acceptance of his non-secessionist painting style, Gerstl continued to paint without any formal guidance for two years. For the summers of 1900 and 1901, Gerstl studied below the instruction of Simon Hollósy in Nagybánya. Inspired by the more modern leanings of Heinrich Lefler, Gerstl once another time attempted formal education. Unfortunately, his refusal to participate in a procession in honor of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria other ostracized him and led to his departure. Gerstl felt that taking ration in such an situation was “unworthy of an artist.” His unquestionable exit from Lefler’s studio took place in 1908.

In 1904 and 1905, Gerstl shared a studio as soon as his former academy classmate and friend, Viktor Hammer. Although Hammer had assisted in Gerstl’s entrйe to Lefler’s auspices and their relationship was friendly, it is difficult to determine how near the two men were as Gerstl did not link with other artists. Regardless of their personal feelings, by 1906, Gerstl had acquired his own studio.