(Wuppertal-Elberfeld 1904–1981 St. Veit im Jauntal/Kärnten)
Zwei Betende / Two Prayers, 1975, monogrammed W. B.,
oil on canvas, 75 x 45 cm, framed

Illustrated and registered in:
Werner Berg. Gemälde mit einem Werkverzeichnis von Harald Scheicher, Verlag Johannes Heyn, 1994, p. 316/1022 (wrong measurement)

Provenance:
Private collection, Carinthia, acquired directly from the artist
Private collection, Austria, since 2010

“Perhaps Werner Berg is the Magic Realist par excellence.”

Wieland Schmied

Werner Berg was an Austrian-German painter and is one of the most important Austrian artists of the 20th century.
Born in 1904 in Elberfeld (Wuppertal, Germany), Berg settled with his family in a rural farmhouse, the ‘Rutarhof’, in the southeastern region of Carinthia in 1931. He found the spiritual basis for his remarkably novel art in rural life, characterised by the daily struggle for existence and the soothing rhythm of weekly and daily routines. In a subtle way, he succeeded in condensing the reality of his everyday life into vivid symbols, achieving an artistically transformed existence that was “closer to things.”

Berg’s focus is therefore not on the human being active in society but on the transcendent state of “being”, the deep spiritual pause. A central group of his works is therefore formed by the theme of the praying person, to which he dedicated himself as early as the 1950s, but which he elevated to a central group of work in its own right after 1971.

Berg’s concentration on the essential, both in terms of content and form, is most clearly on display in the present painting of two women in lateral profile. Through Berg’s characteristic close-up view, the viewer is confronted “frontally and inescapably” (Wieland Schmied) with the women absorbed in prayer. The object of their gaze remains hidden and undefined outside the frame. The rhythmic parallelism of the heads conveys inner unity, while a slight shift off axis dissolves an overly rigid monotony, creating a lively space. In the background, trees become recognisable despite the darkness. They locate the persons in the open and save representation from the stereotype of purely formal solutions.

The painter is most effective in his use of the stark but harmonious contrast between the blue protruding contours, which outline the form in concise formal reduction, and the fantastically luminous pink and blue tones, which reflect inner experience.

„Die Farbigkeit der Bilder ist auf eine Gegensätzlichkeit aufgebaut, die einen Farbklang ergibt, wie ihn nur dieser Maler schaffen kann: Werner Bergs Farbigkeit ist subjektiv.“

Wieland Schmied

“The paintings’ colourfulness is built on dichotomy and results in a colour scheme that only this painter can create: Werner Bergs colours are subjective.”

Wieland Schmied