Grinzing, c. 1932

The Vienna-born painter Carl Moll (1861–1945), a co-founder of the Vienna Secession and artistic director of the Miethke Gallery, frequently depicted motifs from his hometown. This 1932 painting shows the municipality of Grinzing, which had been integrated into Döbling, the 19th District of Vienna, in 1892. From a vantage point, the artist directs the gaze of the observers towards the municipality, which was then still quite rural in character, depicting its parish church and individual houses amid open fields. Executed in pastose brushstrokes and nuanced shades of green and gray, the composition conveys a shimmering vivacity that illustrates Moll’s development of an Expressionist artistic idiom. Moll himself, who became a supporter of National Socialism in the 1930s, lived with his family next to his artist friend Koloman Moser (1868–1918) in a duplex designed by the architect Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) on Hohe Warte in Döbling.

MN, 2024