Beschreibung:

§ (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 MARIE-LOUISE VON MOTESICZKY (AUSTRIAN 1906 - 1996) Study of Canetti Reading oil on board 60.8 x 53.2 cm (24 x 21 in) LITERATURE: Kristian Wachinger (editor), Elias Canette. Bilder aus seinem Leben, Munich, 2005, p. 94, illustrated Ines Schlenker, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky 1906-1996, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, New York, 2009, p. 182, no. 78, illustrated Ines Schlenker and Kristian Wachinger (editors), Liebhaber ohne Adresse. Briefwechsel 1942-1992, Munich, 2011 Painted circa 1945, the present work is Marie-Louise's earliest likeness of Elias Canetti (1905-1994), the Nobel prize-winning author. Born in Bulgaria, Canetti had emigrated from Vienna to England with his wife Veza in 1939, and like Marie-Louise spent the war years in Amersham, north west of London. There Marie-Louise and he began a relationship that would last the next three decades. As a man who professed the need to maintain relationships with different women simultaneously, Canetti was by turns supportive and manipulative of Marie-Louise as a person, but never wavered in his belief in her artistic abilities. As late as 1978 he wrote to Marie-Louise: ‘You are a great painter and whether you want it or not, the world will hear of you. Every picture that you paint will enter the history of art.’ Marie-Louise described Canetti as one of her 'chief gods' (the other two being Max Beckmann and her mother), and she both treasured and endured Canetti’s complex personality, accommodating many of his demands. Among these was the housing of a considerable portion of his library in the house in Amersham, and later in Hampstead, where she kept a room for him to work in. Canetti himself was not an easy sitter, but Marie-Louise featured Canetti in two other notable portraits, one painted in 1960 now in the Wien Museum, Vienna, the other painted in 1992 which she presented to the National Portrait Gallery, London (Schlenker nos. 165 & 315). Canetti was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981. 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 formative years Marie-Louise enjoyed a privileged life. Her mother Henriette was scion of 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. Growing up in an apartment on Brahmsplatz in central Vienna, 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 had died in a hunting accident many years before and 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 she and her mother felt compelled to flee Austria. Further distress followed when her brother Karl, who had remained in Austria, was arrested and deported t