Self-portrait, 1933 August Hirsching. German School.

Self-portrait, 1933

August Hirsching (Unterheimbach / Weinberg 1889 – Stuttgart 1962)

Oil on board, 60 × 44.5 cm

Signed and dated 1933

Inscribed on the reverse: Früh Sommer 1933 – Selbstbildnis

Painted in the summer of 1933, this self-portrait belongs to the figurative culture of southern Germany between the two World Wars, where the legacy of Expressionism remains visible even within more traditional approaches to representation. The painting is built on clear chromatic tensions and a solid, plastic construction of form, characteristic of German portraiture of the period, balancing expressive intensity with formal discipline.

August Hirsching was active in Stuttgart, where he studied at the Technische Hochschule, within the artistic milieu of Württemberg, a region in which many painters of his generation maintained a compact and severe figurative language, shaped by the experience of Expressionism but oriented, during the 1930s, toward a more stable form in relation to the climate of the Neue Sachlichkeit and regional German realism.

Good overall condition. Fine patina.