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Property from the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust, London MARIE-LOUISE VON MOTESICZKY (AUSTRIAN 1906-1996) Camels oil on canvas 76 x 101.5 cm (30 x 40 in) LITERATURE: I. Schlenker, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, New York, 2009, p. 336, no. 194, illustrated E. Michel, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, Eine österreichische Schülerin von Max Beckmann diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2003, p. 45, pl. 54, illustrated Painted in 1964 when the artist visited Tunisia with her friend and former flatmate Julia Altschulova (see note to previous lot). Marie-Louise had been encouraged to travel there by her Dutch relative Jan Willem Salomonson who was working on an archaeological dig. During her trip von Motesiczky enthused about a camel ride in a letter to Elias Canetti: '...today on my great camel ride to the bedouins (3 hours) the camel, which had soiled itself during the rest, wagged its tail so much when I was mounting it again that I was bespattered over and over. My white jacket - the apple of my eye! It was rather funny. The ride was great but quite exhausting, great because one was quite alone, only with the young camel driver - at first through lemon plantations and then through a brook to the mountains, not high but with endless distant views.' (Schlenker p. 336). Five works from the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust (lots 8-12) Oil paintings by Viennese emigré artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (1906-1996) are once again a feature of our sale. Motesiczky’s expressive and very painterly style had been formed before the Second World War, in large part influenced and encouraged by Max Beckmann On first being introduced to Beckmann in 1920 she recalled: ‘A winged creature from Mars could not have made a greater impact on me’. Once in Britain it was Oskar Kokoschka a family friend from Vienna now similarly exiled, who helped champion her work. Thereafter, and very much on a personal level, it was the writer Elias Canetti (1905-1994) a fellow émigré who exercised a major influence over her artistic output. Marie-Louise von Motesiczky grew up with her parents and her brother Karl in central Vienna. Her mother Henriette came from an illustrious Viennese Jewish banking dynasty. Her maternal grandfather, Leopold von Lieben, was President of the Stock Exchange; her grandmother, Anna, one of Freud’s early patients. She counted the Todescos, and Ephrussis among her family circle, and she, her mother and her brother Karl spent their summers at Villa Todesco in Hinterbrühl, south west of the capital. But over time family tragedy, financial difficulties and the rise of Nazi Germany took their toll. Marie-Louise’s father died at the end of 1909 and after the First World War her mother’s considerable inheritance gradually diminished through high taxation, poor investments, and the financial crash of 1929. Then, with the rise of the Third Reich and the Anschluss in March 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany, she and her mother fled Vienna for the Netherlands before emigrating to England in 1939. Further distress followed when her brother Karl, who had remained in Austria, was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, dying of typhus there on 25 June 1943. On Motesiczky’s arrival in London Kokoschka ensured her inclusion in a series of group exhibitions, and assisted her in the staging of a solo exhibition at the Czechoslovak Institute in the autumn of 1944. Further group shows followed, and in 1960 she had a second solo exhibition at the influential Beaux Arts Gallery off Bond Street. On the Continent she received acclaim for her work in exhibitions in Amsterdam and The Hague in 1952, one of her canvases being purchased by the Stedelijk Museum. The same decade she exhibited in Munich and Düsseldorf, and in the 1960s was the subject of shows in Germany and Austria, including a one-person exhibition at the Wiener Secession in 1966. In 1985, a full twenty-five years a