(Mistelbach 1853-1906 Hinterbrühl)
A young man in stockings at a writing desk, signed Wilh. Bernatzik, watercolour on cardboard, 40 x 28 cm, mounted, framed, (Hu)

Provenance:
Familie Marx, Gaaden near Vienna, c. 1900; their heirs; private collection in Germany.

After his law studies Wilhelm Bernatzik dedicated himself to painting and attended the „Spezialschule“ for landscape painting in the class of Eduard Peitner von Lichtenfels at the Vienna Academy between 1873-75. From 1875 onwards Bernatzik studied in Düsseldorf, then he went to Paris and studied with Leon Bonnat as of 1878. In 1880 he became a member of the Künstlerhaus and belonged to the founding members of the Vienna Secession together with Josef Engelhart, Josef Hoffmann, Carl Moll, Gustav Klimt and Josef Olbrich. In 1905 he left together with the Klimt-group the Secession because of disputes among the members. Bernatzik was foremost a landscape painter and preferred motifs from Vienna and Lower Austria which he depicted en plein air. Heiligenkreuz Monastary, which was not far away from his residence in Hinterbrühl, and related Cistertian subjects occur frequently in his work. Apart from this, Bernatzik also painted genre and symbolist subjects. He is regarded a representative of Viennese Modernism around 1900 and was managed by the galerist Hugo Othmar Miethke. (B. Hagerty)