Still Life with Wine Glass, Fish and Lemons, 1929

The wine glass is empty, the two grilled fish lie untouched on the plate, between bright red lemons. A butter knife on the tabletop points out of the picture space. The pieces of fruit flash up, colorfully and brightly, against the monochromatic bare room that Gerhart Frankl (1901–1965) unfolds in his 1929 Still Life with Wine Glass, Fishes and Lemons. As in the case of Still Life with Lobster one can see that Frankl thought of the Old Masters and Baroque painting as objects of study in his artistic exploration. He loosens up the earlier work by removing the scarlet-red lobster and a bowl from the composition. Like with his teacher Anton Kolig (1886–1950), color is not used as a means of object representation; rather, the objects represented serve as projection surfaces for his color and compositional experimentation.

RR, 2021