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Starvation, c. 1901

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
India ink, pen, watercolor, spray technique on cadastral paper
31.2×39 cm

Artists

  • Alfred Kubin

    (Leitmeritz/Litoměřice 1877–1959 Zwickledt)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
A force of nature or the product of human baseness? Does the 1901 India ink drawing Starvation provide an answer to this question? The multi-talented artist Alfred Kubin (1877–1959) leaves none of the details to chance: On the back of a horse with flaring nostrils, pinned-back ears and gritted teeth, its eyes wide with terror and its rear part skeletonized, which is galloping at breathtaking speed through an endless desert of ice towards a sea of freezing cold water, a figure in Napoleonic attire with knee-length boots and spurs is sitting upright – with its head missing. Its tightly wrapped cloak disguises its torso – only the stump of the neck remains visible – and is blowing in the strong headwind, wrinkling in shaggy folds behind the human figure. The head of the rider, depicted in profile with a bizarrely distorted grimace, is impaled on the tip of the long lance which the decapitated figure is holding under its arm in a knight-like manner during its breakneck ride. Instead of a tail, the half-bony horse merely has a stretched-out skeletal stub adorned with a thin tassel of hair. Kubin uses pen, India ink and spray technique to invite us into the abysmal, nightmarish universes of his rich imagination.

MH, 2021

Object data

Artist/author
  • Alfred Kubin
Title
Starvation
Date
c. 1901
Art movement
Symbolism
Category
Graphic work
Material​/technique
India ink, pen, watercolor, spray technique on cadastral paper
Dimensions
31.2×39 cm
Signature
Signed lower right using brown ink: AKubin; designated lower left using pencil: Hungersnoth; dedicated lower center: sl.l. Grafe in Erinnerung an vom 24. Juni 1911 Kubin
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 917
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Alfred Kubin. Aus meinem Reich. Meisterblätter aus dem Leopold Museum, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold/Romana Schuler, Wien 2002 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 05.10.2002-06.01.2003).
Keywords
allegorymagic/supernatural phenomenariding: horse/donkey/muleswiftness/speedlancelow hill countrysnowbootsblindnessDeath as skeleton

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Marianne Grafe, später Haeutler, Wien (1911); (1)
Max Morgenstern, Wien später London (vor 1938-1947);
Hertha Morgenstern, später Morton, London (1947-1962);
Bob William Morton, London (1962-1972); (2)
Auktion: 29.11.1972, Sotheby`s, London, Drawings and Waltercoulours by Alfred Kubin from the Collection of the late Max Morgenstern of Vienna, Lot 12; (3)
Franz Armin Morat, Freiburg im Breisgau (1972–1981); (4)
Rudolf Leopold, Wien (vor 1985-1994); (5)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994).

  1. bezeichnet links unten mit Bleistift: „Hungersnoth“; Widmung in Blattmitte unten: „s. l. Grafe in Erinnerung an vom 24. Juni 1911 Kubin“ (Anm.: Marianne Grafe war eine Freundin Kubins aus der Münchner Zeit)
  2. Rückseitig Stempel: Max Morgenstern, Wien XIII., Hietzinger-Hauptstrasse 34a; Sonja Niederacher, Dossier Max Morgenstern und Hertha Morgenstern, 21. Dezember 2009, S. 5f.
  3. Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Important Impressionists and Modern Watercolours and Drawings – Part I, London 1972, S. 16.
  4. Hans Peter Albers (Hrsg.), Katalog zur Ausstellung ”Alfred Kubin. Das zeichnerische Frühwerk bis 1904”, Baden-Baden 1977, S. 226, Nr. 62; Karl Arndt (Hg.), Alfred Kubin. Mappenwerke, Bücher, Einzelblätter aus der Sammlung Hedwig und Helmut Goedeckemeyer, Göttingen 1980, S. 35f., Nr. 1.8
  5. Telefonische Auskunft von Franz Armin Morat vom 22.05.2017; Österreichische Länderbank u. Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum, Katalog zur Ausstellung „Alfred Kubin. Leben ein Abgrund“, Wien u. München 1985, S. 80, Nr. 31

For provenance related information, please contact us.

Search in collection

allegorymagic/supernatural phenomenariding: horse/donkey/muleswiftness/speedlancelow hill countrysnowbootsblindnessDeath as skeleton