Today – 28th February – is the 55th anniversary of Theodor Kern’s death. It’s good to see that his anniversary is still remembered, and prayers for him still requested, at the church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Andrew in Hitchin, which he attended for many years and where a number of his paintings and sculptures, as well as his Stations of the Cross, can still be seen. This is an extract from the church’s current newsletter:
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.
Theodor Kern’s 1951 painting ‘Krippe’ – literally ‘crib’ or ‘manger’, but in German also used to mean a Nativity scene – is back on sale again at the Dorotheum in Salzburg.
A couple of weeks ago I noted that the painting had been offered at auction at the same location last December, but there was no information on the Dorotheum website about the actual sale. It now seems that either there was insufficient interest or the painting didn’t realise its minimum price, as it will be offered for sale again on 22nd of this month. As before, the starting price is 360 euros.
In my opinion, this is one of Kern’s more accomplished later works, and one of his better semi-abstract depictions of the Nativity. If my pockets were deeper, I’d be tempted to bid for it myself, but even if the painting realises its minimum price, the addition of taxes, shipping costs and import duties would make it prohibitively expensive. I’m hoping that a public gallery might be tempted to enter a bid, so that this fine work of art doesn’t disappear from view into a private collection.
Update: 23.02.24
The painting was sold yesterday. It realised its starting price of 360 euros (£310, $390).
Some time ago I posted a copy of the record of Theodor Kern’s baptism, which took place on 12th July 1900 in the parish church of Morzg, near Salzburg. I noted that the writing on the certificate was difficult to read and that I would welcome help with transcribing it. In particular, I had been unable to make out some of the information about Theodor’s mother, Ottilie. So I’m grateful to Andreas (no surname given) who has left a comment on the original post with a translation of the relevant section as follows:
Mrs. Ottilie Kern, born Mohr, legitimate daughter of Heinrich Mohr, factory owner in St. Louis, USA, and of Wilhelmine born Diesel, Protestant religion.
This very helpfully supplies the names of Theodor Kern’s maternal grandparents, which had been missing until now. However, the reference to Ottilie’s father and his ownership of a factory in the United States is puzzling and possibly contradicts information about Ottilie’s origins found elsewhere.
Theodor Kern, Portrait bust of the artist’s mother, 1929
According to the brief biography of Theodor Kern written by his nephew, the journalist Ernst Ziegeleder, Ottilie Kern, née Mohr, was born in 1864 in Pößneck, a town in the Saale-Orla-Kreis district of Thuringia, Germany. Ziegeleder claims that she was the daughter of a master clothier in the town, but makes no mention of a factory in America. However, I suppose Heinrich Mohr’s business interests in his home town in Germany are not incompatible with also owning a factory overseas. It’s also possible that Mohr emigrated after his daughter had left home. According to Ziegeleder, Ottilie, a ‘petite creature’ in her youth, came to Salzburg with her some of her sisters, and, like them, found work as a florist. This perhaps explains how she came to meet her husband Johan Kern, then making a name for himself in the city as a gardener and expert on flora and fauna, and soon to be appointed director of the main cemetery in Salzburg.
Ottilie’s Protestant upbringing is also of interest. Presumably she did not object to her children being raised as Catholics, since they were all christened in the local parish church. However, as we know, Theodor’s faith would only really become meaningful to him, and to influence his art in a profound way, after his spiritual experience in Paris in 1931.
Update 05.02.24
When I wrote the above post yesterday, I forgot that I had come across the information about Heinrich Mohr before, in a Salzburgwiki entry about Theodor’s father Johan Kern and the long tradition of landscape gardening in the Kern family. I mentioned it here. This, when combined with the information on the baptismal record, seems fairly definitive, though it doesn’t shed any light on the mystery of how a Missouri factory owner came to have a daughter who was born in Thuringia and married in Salzburg.
The painting bears a signature which the auction house interprets as reading ‘Theo Kern’, though it doesn’t resemble the way the artist signed his name on any other of his works. As for the picture itself, it’s unlike any of Kern’s other abstract pieces, but on the other hand he is known to have experimented with a variety of different abstract and semi-abstract styles in his later years.
I’m curious to know what ‘manner of’ means in this instance. Does it mean that the seller thinks it might possibly be a genuine Kern, but can’t be sure? Or was it created by another artist as a conscious imitation of Kern’s style? I notice that a number of other works sold by the same gallery are ‘in the style of’ or ‘after’ famous artists, with the identity of the actual artist unknown. If this painting is of a similar nature, I suppose it’s flattering that Theodor Kern was well-known enough for another artist to copy.
According to the website, the painting was sold for $225 (£177).
After writing yesterday’s post, I thought I’d better check online to see if I’d missed any other auctions of works by Theodor Kern. Eventually, I came across the record of an auction that took place almost exactly a year ago – on 19th January 2023 – at Portcullis Fine Art and Antiques in Ludlow, Shropshire.
The sale of ‘Fine art, antiques and collectables’ included an unframed pencil drawing by Theodor Kern, signed and dated 1933, which was given the generic title ‘Portrait of a young man’. Sadly, the identity of the subject is unknown, but it’s likely that the drawing was created during the artist’s first, brief stay in England in the early 1930s, before his mother’s final illness prompted a return to Salzburg in 1934. A speculative thought: we know that Kern gave art classes at Eton during this period, so does the rather formal dress of the young man in this drawing suggest that he may have been one of his students?
Finally, it was rather disappointing to read that this finely-executed portrait realised a mere £25 at auction.
I recently discovered that there were two auctions of paintings by Theodor Kern towards the end of last year, which I somehow managed to miss at the time. Not that I would have had the resources to make a bid myself, but it’s always interesting when either well-known works, or pieces that you’ve not come across before, come on to the market. (All images in this post are via the Mutual Art website.)
Theodor Kern, ‘Abstrakte Landschaft’
Theodor Kern, ‘Wirbel’ (c.1960)
Theodor Kern, ‘Vogelfisch 1954’
The first auction, which took place at the Salzburg branch of the Dorotheum on 30th November, featured five paintings by Kern, all of them abstract or semi-abstract and created in the 1950s or early 1960s. I had seen reproductions of two of the paintings before, in Karl Heinz Ritschel’s 1990 book, Der Maler Theodor Kern. They are the richly colourful ‘Abstrakte Landschaft’ (‘Abstract Landscape’) from 1951, and ‘Wirbel’ (‘Vortex’) from c.1960. A third painting, ‘Vogelfisch 1954’ ‘(Flying fish 1954’) is very similar, and has a similar title, to the picture on the cover of Ritschel’s book, which is dated 1960. Neither are among my favourite paintings by the artist, or in a style that I find particularly appealing, but something about the subject obviously captured his imagination.
Theodor Kern, ‘Abstrakte Komposition’
Theodor Kern, ‘Abstrakte Komposition’
For me, the highlights of this auction were the two other paintings, both bearing the title ‘Abstrakte Komposition’ (‘Abstract Composition’), and neither of them dated. These pictures were completely new to me, so it was a real pleasure to see them, if only in reproduction, for the first time. In my opinion, they represent the more attractive aspects of Kern’s late style, with their bright swirls of primary colours and sense of dynamic movement.
The five paintings in the auction all had an identical starting price of 400 Euros, but the Dorotheum website only has information about the final sale price of one of them: the second abstract composition, which realised 480 Euros.
Theodor Kern, ‘Krippe’ (1951)
The other auction was held on 7th December, also at the Salzburg Dorotheum, though on this occasion only one of Theodor Kern’s works was one sale. This was ‘Krippe’ from 1951, one of the artist’s many semi-abstract depictions of the Nativity, which was also familiar to me from von Ritschel’s book, with its stark, almost monochrome use of bright yellows and whites against a deep blue background. On this occasion the starting bid was slightly lower at 360 Euros, but again there is no information online about whether the painting was sold or what price was achieved.
The fact that a number of Kern’s paintings have come up for sale at around the same time makes me wonder whether a private collection was being sold off, perhaps following the death of its owner. It’s pure speculation on my part, and I’m happy to stand corrected by those who have better information, but I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the artist’s good friend and fellow member of the Herz Jesu Gemeinschaft, the legal philosopher Wolfgang Waldstein, who lived in Salzburg, died in October last year (see this post)?
Today – 6th January – is the feast of the Epiphany, known as Dreikönigsfest, or Three Kings Day, in Austria and Germany. The adoration of the Christ Child by the three kings – die Anbetung der heiligen drei Könige – was a subject that Theodor Kern returned to throughout his career as a painter, depicting the iconic scene in very different styles at different stages in his artistic development.
The first painting below, from 1929, is quite conventional, reflecting its probable origin as a commission for a church or religious building. The second example, from about 1950, is from Kern’s unfinished Madonna cycle and is representative of the highly-coloured, semi-abstract style with which he was experimenting at the time. The third work, from the same period, is different again, less abstract but surrounding the key figures with swirls of colour rather than a realistic or semi-realistic landscape. The effect is to focus attention on the intimate exchange of looks between one of the kings, the Child, and His Mother. It’s one of my favourite paintings by Kern.
The final image is a wooden carving of one of the three kings, part of a set created by Theodor Kern and left in her will by his widow Friedl to members of the Watts family: photograph courtesy of Gerard Watts (see this post).
‘Die Anbetung der heiligen drei Könige im Stall’ (1929), Salzburg Museum
Madonnenzyklus-Anbetung der Hl. Drei Könige (c.1950), via artnet.com
‘Anbetung der Heiligen Drei Könige’ (c.1950), Museum der Moderne, Salzburg
I’d like to wish all my readers a very Happy Christmas and to thank you for following this blog during the year.
The painting is Theodor Kern’s Anbetung der Heiligen Drei Könige, one of his many representations of the adoration of the Christ Child by the Three Kings.
The collection of Kern-related publications formerly belonging to Jean Watts, kindly shared with me by her son Gerard (seetheseposts), includes an edition of Art Notes from the summer of 1943. According to its front cover, the magazine was published on a quarterly basis by St. Michael’s Workshop, whose address was 28a Cornmarket Street in Oxford, just opposite the ancient church of St Michael at the North Gate. This particular issue was the second number in the seventh volume and was sold for the price of one shilling and threepence.
From the names of its ecclesiastical patrons, and from the contents of previous issues, given on the inside cover, one can deduce that this was a Catholic publication. Its editor was Joan Morris, S.P., who was herself an artist, writer and champion for women’s rights in the Church. Most of this issue is taken up with a long essay, ‘Towards a philosophy of art’, by E.I.Watkin, whose works are also listed on the inside back cover. Edmund Ingram Watkin (1888-1981) was a convert to Catholicism and a prominent pacifist and anti-fascist. He was the father of Magdalen Goffin (1925-2015, who wrote a biography of him, as well as Maria Pasqua, a life of her Italian grandmother, which I read some time ago with great pleasure.
The contents of the issue are given on the cover page of the magazine and include ‘Paintings by Theodor Kern’. There is also a handwritten note on the copy in my possession – almost certainly by the artist himself – ‘See Page 4’. At the foot of that page is a brief paragraph, also headed ‘Paintings by Theodor Kern’, reading as follows:
Theodor Kern is an Austrian and a specialist in fresco painting. He has painted many a church in his own country. Exiled here he has continued his fresco work in a church in Letchworth where he is living. He is showing some of his paintings, landscapes and portraits at St. Michael’s Workshop during May, also two stained glass pieces. His colour is rich and warm and he is at his best when he allows himself a form of expression which is free and spontaneous.
Alongside this paragraph is a monochrome reproduction entitled ‘Detail of Stained Glass Window’ which is possibly part of a window illustrating the story of the wedding at Cana and is perhaps one of the two stained glass pieces that Kern was due to exhibit in Oxford in May 1944. It would be interesting to see more details of this exhibition, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful in discovering anything further about it, or indeed about the activities of St. Michael’s Workshop.
In 1943, Kern was still living in Letchworth and had yet to move to the house in Hitchin where he would remain for the rest of his life. The church mentioned in the piece is almost certainly the Catholic parish church of St Hugh of Lincoln. As Karl Heinz Ritschel relates in his brief biography of Kern, the early 1940s found the artist working in hospitals in Hertfordshire ‘drawing and painting with wounded soldiers’, which according to Ritschel ‘was a profound experience for him, giving him an understanding of human suffering, both physical and mental’. Ritschel continues [my translation]: ‘A move to Letchworth became advisable for reasons of distance; a priest gave him a place to live, for which in turn he had to create a nativity scene.’ In time, Kern would create other works of art for the Letchworth church, including two stained glass windows and a wooden crucifix. I haven’t seen any other references to the frescoes mentioned in the article. I believe Kern’s works were created for the original church building, founded by the antiquarian and scholar Father Adrian Fortescue in 1908 and influenced both by Byzantine architecture and the Arts and Crafts Movement, which became Fortescue Hall when a new church was consecrated in 1963.
In 1930 Theodor Kern was commissioned to paint two frescoes on the exterior of the Rathaus – the town hall – in Hallein, a town on the Salzach river ten miles to the south of Salzburg, celebrating the town’s 700th anniversary. I’ve written about these murals in a number of earlier posts, and last year the Vienna-based art historian Stefan Bstieler kindly sent me some colour images of them. Kern had worked in Hallein before. One of his earliest commissions, in 1926, had been to paint frescoes depicting the life of St Francis of Assisi in the chapel of a convent in the town, and in 1929 he had painted the portrait of the town’s mayor, Anton Neumayr.
Kern’s frescoes for the Hallein Rathaus are featured in the January 1931 issue of Die Mappe:Deutsche Malerzeitung, an art magazine published by Callwey Verlag in Munich. The magazine, which was founded in 1881 and is apparently still going, claims to be the oldest German-language magazine for artists. A copy of this particular issue was in the collection of Kern-related items belonging to the late Jean Watts, which her son Gerard has kindly shared with me.
Photographs of Theodor Kern’s frescoes illustrate a general article in the magazine about fresco painting, which is presented as a conversation between the writer Max Schoen and a Professor Nida-Rümelin. In addition to the three photographs of the Hallein Rathaus, a number of murals by Kern’s contemporary Leopoldine ‘Poldi’ Wojtek are featured, including her fresco painting of fishermen for the Gemeindehaus, or community hall, in Zell am Zee, which has some similarities with Kern’s Hallein mural.
Kern and Wojtek were both part of the same group of young artists in Salzburg in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and Kern obviously knew Wojtek well enough to paint her portrait. But, as I noted in the previous post, placing the work of the two artists side-by-side is, with historical hindsight, deeply ironic, given their very different responses to the Anschluss of 1938: Wojtek illustrated a children’s book about Hitler, and with her art historian and SS officer husband Kajetan Mühlmann, appropriated the ‘Aryanised’ home of Jewish artist Helene von Taussig, while Kern helped many Jews and others to escape from Austria and was eventually forced to flee the country himself.
As far as I can see, the main article makes no direct reference to the two artists whose frescoes are illustrated. However, it is followed by a shorter piece, also by Max Schoen, entitled ‘Notes on the images of the frescoes: on the illustrations by Frl. Poldi Wojtek and Th. Kern, Salzburg’, in which the writer offers an analysis of the murals. Having discussed Wojtek’s work, he turns to ‘the pictures by Theodor Kern, Salzburg, Figs. 5, 6 and 7.’ My translation of Schoen’s critique of Kern’s frescoes follows. Part of its interest for me is that it’s one of the few pieces of writing I’ve come across to offer an art-historical analysis of Kern’s work, and even to strike something of a critical note, though this is tempered by an understanding of the constraints under which the commissioned public artist had to work:
For the 700th anniversary, the painter decorated the old town hall, which was expanded by the architect Lamminger and was roughly the same size as the residential buildings. The middle building towers over the two wing buildings, which are of the same height, but otherwise the window sizes, floor heights and axis divisions are different in each part. The task in creating the pictures was to combine the three parts into a distinct whole. There were several ways to do this: either emphasizing the central structure through colourful decoration or a lack of images compared to the wings, or a rhythmic arrangement of several images next to each other, which would have to be distributed across all the houses in order to give them a common, unifying motif. Instead, the central building and one wing were decorated with roughly equivalent frescoes, and unfortunately the middle building, which should have been suppressed in order to deprive the house of its independence, was not specifically emphasized. A third similar image on the left wing structure would have created a rhythm that included all parts (the second possibility in the sense above). Distributing the two frescoes across the wings would have corresponded to this suggestion. The architectural arrangement of the pictures is not happy, as they do not pull the building together. To what extent the painter had a free hand in determining the places for his pictures is beyond my knowledge. Another disadvantage is that their edge lines follow the window layout so closely, instead of sitting randomly on the wall surface. This would have made it easy to push the picture on the wing building off its axis, thereby depriving it of its independence. A right-angled end always separates the picture from the background and, like the frame of the panel painting, separates it from the wall, even if there is no end strip.
The colour is good, vibrant and cheerful. Only the individual colour areas are a little small for the size of the image, perhaps even a little similar in size. In my opinion, large, peaceful mountains as a background would have given the images more weight. But criticism is easy; always easy; easiest for work that ventures into new territory and wants to introduce something of its own. And we must fully recognize and joyfully welcome this: the fresh move, the courageous beginning, to master the mural independently, without relying on baroque forerunners, in a modern spirit. The topics were predetermined. Fig. 6: Althallein, old Hallein houses, the Salzach with the old wooden dam, boatmen on a salt ship, symbolizing the source of the city’s former wealth. Fig.7: Neuhallein with new buildings, regulation of the Salzach and new bridge. In the foreground is the mayor with the director of the Salzach regulation looking at a map.
Theodor Kern 