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(British & European Fine Art | Live Online, 4th December 2020) MARIE-LOUISE VON MOTESICZKY (AUSTRIAN 1906 - 1996) Property from the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust (lots 820 - 827) MARIE-LOUISE VON MOTESICZKY (AUSTRIAN 1906 - 1996) Lobster oil on canvas 40.3 x 60.5 cm (15 3/4 x 23 3/4 in) EXHIBITED: London, Roland Browse & Delbanco, The Renaissance of the Fish. Paintings from the 17th to the 20th Century, 1953, no. 42 (erroneously dated 1952) Munich, Städtische Galerie, Erna Dinklage, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1954, no. 118 London, Beaux-Arts Gallery, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1960, no. 28 (erroneously dated 1954) Linz, Wolfgang Gurlitt Museum, Neue Galerie der Stadt, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1966, no. 34 (erroneously dated 1954) Vienna, Wiener Secession, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1966, no. 34 (erroneously dated 1954) Munich, Galerie Günther Frank, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1967, no. 34 (erroneously dated 1954) Bremen, Kunsthalle, Marie-Louise Motesiczky, 1968, no. 34 (erroneously dated 1954) London, Goethe-Institut, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky. Paintings Vienna 1925 - London 1985, 1985, no. 39 (illustrated in the catalogue; erroneously dated 1954) LITERATURE: Eva Michel, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996. Eine österreichische Schülerin von Max Beckmann diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2003, p. 55, pl. 76, illustrated in colour (erroneously dated 1954) Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, exh. cat., 2006, p. 200, discussed; p. 202, fig. 49, illustrated in colour Jill Lloyd, The Undiscovered Expressionist. A Life of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, New Haven/London, 2007, p. 148, discussed Ines Schlenker, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, New York, 2009, p. 231, no. 119, illustrated Painted in 1953, the artist's playful depiction of a cyclopic-eyed lobster, served up on a silver salver with accompanying garniture borders on the humorous. Indeed, in her diary Marie-Louise's month-long struggle to capture the essence of the crustacean is tinged with a hint of the absurd. She triumphantly marked the painting’s completion on 13th April 1953 with the words: ‘Finally lobster finished, a weight lifted from my heart’. In her catalogue entry Schlenker wryly notes: 'To celebrate - and possibly as a little revenge for the trouble it had caused - Motesiczky went out to eat half a lobster the next day' (Schlenker p. 230). The particular significance of Lobster for Marie-Louise is not clear, but an important influence on her following her arrival in London was Oskar Kokoschka who was also living in exile in England. The subject of the present work could well have been inspired by the older artist's rendition of another crustacean: his influential painting The Crab of 1939-40 (collection of Tate). Lobster was included in The Renaissance of the Fish. Paintings from the 17th to the 20th Century – a surely tongue-in-cheek exhibition title – at Roland Browse and Delbanco the year it was painted. Other artists represented in the show included Picasso, Matisse and Max Ernst beside emerging British artists William Scott Prunella Clough Edouard Paolozzi and Lucian Freud (see Lloyd p. 148). Property from the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust (lots 820 - 827) Viennese emigré artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (1906-1996) parted with few of her works during her lifetime, and since her death less than a handful have appeared on the open market. Lots 820 - 827 span four decades - from 1945 to the early 1980s - and mark the first time a group of her paintings is to be offered at auction. Marie-Louise lived in Vienna until the Anschluss in 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany and she and her Jewish mother were forced to emigrate to England in 1939. The primary influence on her art was the German painter Max Beckmann whom Marie-Louise had first met in her early ‘teens in 1920. She recalled: ‘A winged creature from Mars could not have made a greater impact on me’. During her forma