Plaster model, bronze-patinated, of the large reclining nude sculpture from around 1920/30

Large plas­ter mod­el of the reclin­ing female sculp­ture, won­der­ful­ly exe­cut­ed in full three-dimen­sion­al form from white mar­ble by Edwin Grien­auer, reflect­ing the style of the 1920s-30s.

The orig­i­nal sculp­ture exe­cut­ed in white mar­ble is also part of our col­lec­tion. Please click here for more infor­ma­tion.

A styl­is­ti­cal­ly com­pa­ra­ble stat­uette by Edwin Grien­auer from around 1920 is in the col­lec­tion of the Aus­tri­an Belvedere in Vien­na. This sculp­ture was exhib­it­ed in 1984 at Schloss Halb­turn in the exhi­bi­tion ​‘Art in Aus­tria 1918 – 1938 from the Aus­tri­an Gallery.‘

The exhi­bi­tion was ded­i­cat­ed to the art of the 1920s and 1930s, show­cas­ing exclu­sive­ly art from their own col­lec­tions. With the pre­sen­ta­tion of 174 paint­ings and sculp­tures, spe­cial atten­tion was giv­en to this col­lec­tion area for the first time.

Edwin Grien­auer (1893 Vien­na – 1964 Vien­na):

Edwin Grien­auer was born in 1893 as the son of cel­list Karl Grien­auer and opera singer Helene Schott in Vien­na. He stud­ied at the Vien­na School of Arts and Crafts, hav­ing cre­at­ed his first por­trait plaques at the age of 19.

The sculp­tor and medal­list, born into a fam­i­ly of musi­cians, received his ini­tial train­ing as a sculp­tor’s assis­tant with A. End­stor­fer and K. Wollek. From 1916 to 1919, he stud­ied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vien­na, includ­ing under F. Bar­wig. In 1920, he became a mem­ber of the Vien­na Artists’ House and was award­ed the title of ​“Pro­fes­sor” in 1935. From 1949 to 1955, Grien­auer was a lec­tur­er at the Acad­e­my of Fine Arts and then worked as a free­lance artist. Edwin Grien­auer cre­at­ed large sculp­tures for reli­gious and sec­u­lar build­ings, por­trait busts, and small bronzes. His work com­bines a nat­u­ral­is­tic rep­re­sen­ta­tion with the influ­ence of the Vien­na Seces­sion.

How­ev­er, Grien­auer gained the most recog­ni­tion for his cast and embossed medals. From 1928, he designed coin dies for dou­ble schilling coins and the 5‑schilling coin; mint­ing from 1934 to 1936, Magna Mater Aus­tri­ae (Mari­azeller Mut­ter­gottes). He received var­i­ous awards, includ­ing the bronze medal at the Olympic Art Com­pe­ti­tion in 1948.

Ref­er­ence link to the Belvedere col­lec­tion, click here

Lit­er­a­ture:

- Hans Vollmer (Ed.): Gen­er­al Lex­i­con of Visu­al Artists of the 20^th Cen­tu­ry. 6 Vol­umes. Munich: Ger­man Paper­back Pub­lish­ing 1953 – 1962
- Hans Pem­mer / Franz Englisch: Land­straßer Häuser­chronik. Vol­ume 3 (WSt­LA). Vien­na: 1958 ff., p. 159
- Hans Pem­mer / Franz Englisch: Land­straßer Häuser­chronik. Vol­ume 4 (WSt­LA). Vien­na: 1958 ff., p. 4, 125 f.
- Franz Plan­er (Ed.): The Year­book of Vien­nese Soci­ety. Bio­graph­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to Vien­nese con­tem­po­rary his­to­ry. Vien­na: F. Plan­er 1929
- Pap­pernigg, Michaela (Ed.) / Reit­er, Cor­nelia (Ed.) / Kahler, Thomas (Ed.): Art of the 20^th Cen­tu­ry. Cat­a­log of the Aus­tri­an Gallery of the 20^th Cen­tu­ry, Vol. 2: G – K, edit­ed by the Aus­tri­an Gallery Belvedere, Vien­na 1995, p. 59

Web Links:

• Wikipedia: Edwin Grienauer

• Elmar Fröschl: ​“Eine Biografie des Bild­hauers und Medailleurs Edwin Grien­auer” (Dipl.-Arbeit). Wien: Uni­ver­sität Wien 2014, Elmar Fröschl: ​‘A Biog­ra­phy of the Sculp­tor and Medal­list Edwin Grien­auer’ (Diplo­ma The­sis). Vien­na: Uni­ver­si­ty of Vien­na 2014