Theodor Kern was a prolific artist. The ArtUK website includes 101 reproductions of his paintings held in UK galleries, of which the vast majority are at Wardown Park Museum in Luton (see these posts). However, the museum also has many other works by Kern in its possession which have yet to be catalogued, let alone exhibited. Salzburg Museum has 69 of Kern’s works in its collection (see these four posts), while the Museum der Moderne in the same city owns 20 more (see these posts). A number of other galleries appear to hold the odd Kern painting or drawing, while many more are in private collections, which includes those items inherited by family and friends in Austria and elsewhere, as well as those from his Hitchin studio which Theodor’s widow Frieda gave away to friends after her husband’s death. And that’s without accounting for the hundreds of commissioned paintings, murals, sculptures, wood carvings and works in stained glass to be found in churches and other public buildings throughout England and Austria.
I’ve also mentioned in earlier posts the substantial collection of unfinished paintings, drawings and sketches which Frieda entrusted to Peter Smith, the former curator of Luton Museum and a good friend of the artist, and to which Peter’s son Matt has kindly allowed me access. I’ve shared some examples of work from the Smith collection in other posts, but a recent search threw up some other pieces which I hadn’t really noticed before. Recently I’ve become interested in Kern’s ‘late style’ and the influence on his painting from the 1950s onwards of Abstract Expressionism, something I plan to write more about at some point. I found this untitled abstract piece in the collection which I rather like:
This unfinished painting appears to have been influenced by a different kind of (semi?) abstraction:
A large number of pieces in the collection appear to be sketches for stained glass windows. I found this colourful, semi-abstract depiction of St. Martin giving his cloak to the beggar quite appealing:
These panels, dated 1931, soon after Kern’s religious conversion experience in Paris, must have been for a church in Austria:
I was also intrigued by two pieces, which also seem to be stained glass designs, though with a shared secular theme. I wonder about the identities of the loving couple in these two pictures: Abelard and Eloise? Dante and Beatrice? Romeo and Juliet?
Theodor Kern 