Johann Harms (Father of Edith Schiele), c. 1906

With a soft, hardly perceptible smile, Johann Heinrich Harms (1843–1917) is looking to the left of the camera, his eyes slightly lifted. This portrait photograph was probably taken around 1906 at the address Graben 17 in Vienna’s 1st District, where the “Imperial and Royal Court Photographer” Rupert Pokorny (1848/49 (?)–1919) had a subsidiary studio; his main studio was at Mariahilferstraße 55. Johann Harms became Schiele’s father-in-law when his daughter Edith (1893–1918) married Egon Schiele (1890–1918) on 17th June 1915. Schiele was fond of the older man, whom he captured in at least three drawings from 1916 as well as a subsequent large-scale oil portrait. The painting is now part of the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Johann Harms died soon after the work was completed: “[…] my father-in-law died of old age on 5th Jan., I liked him very much, he was tall and slim, – 76 years old”, Schiele wrote to his brother-in-law Anton Peschka (1885–1940) in January 1917. During the funeral reception in Vienna, Schiele made a death mask of the deceased.

KJ, 2023