Church in Heiligenstadt, 1907

Carl Moll was born in 1861 in Vienna, and remained attached to his hometown until his death in 1945. Having studied under Christian Griepenkerl (1839–1912) and Emil Jakob Schindler (1842–1892), Moll, who co-founded the Vienna Secession in 1897, and later worked for Galerie Miethke, would go on to become a central figure of the Viennese art scene. With his multi-colored woodcuts in a square format, Moll followed in the tradition of his series Beethoven Houses (cf. Vienna, Schwarspanierstraße, Beethoven Houses No. 11). Both series focused on the baroque and Biedermeier buildings and streets of the Vienna suburbs which, at the time, were threatened by progressing industrialization and the city’s expansion. In his woodcuts showing “Old Vienna”, Moll arrived at a harmonious pictorial composition and a nuanced rendering of color values and light reflections, thus emphasizing the significance of printed graphic works for Viennese Modernism.

MN, 2024