Print By Kurzweil: Der Polster, The Cushion

1903

Color woodcut, 285 x 260 mm (sheet: 385 x 305 mm), Novotny-Adolph 428, Group B.
Proof on fine Japanese paper published in the journal *Jahresmappe der Gesellschaft für
Vervielfältigende Kunst in Wien* in five colors: yellow, green, brown, blue, and black. There are variations in the print; this proof belongs to “Group B”—blue dress, green sofa, gray tones. Proof mounted on its original backing of off-white Japanese paper.

The subject is Martha Kurzweil, his wife, seated on a sofa.
Relatively early on, in the early 1890s, a decisive change occurred in Kurzweil’s life and art when he came into contact with French painting. He worked in Paris from 1892 to 1894 and made regular summer visits to Concarneau, where a colony of artists—including Signac and Andri—had settled. What particularly impressed him at the time was the painting of Vuillard and Bonnard, and Vallotton’s black-and-white graphic art. It was also during this period that he met Martha Guyot, the daughter of a merchant and deputy mayor of Concameau. The following summer, they became engaged and were married in 1895.
The most significant of Kurzweil’s rare prints is this color woodcut.
In Kurzweil’s oeuvre, this woodcut clearly embodies the artist’s personality and, at the same time, the essence of an artistic movement—indeed, the very essence of a century.
Much of what Art Nouveau conveys about the spirit of the era can be seen in this print, particularly the highly characteristic floral style found in both the cushion and the sofa’s pattern. But this “ornamental cheerfulness” is counterbalanced by the understated color of the dress and the posture of his wife, whose face is hidden, buried, as if taking refuge in a melancholy—the very same melancholy that gnawed at the artist.
Max Kurzweil was a co-founder of the Vienna Secession in 1897. He co-edited and illustrated the monthly magazine *Ver sacrum* starting in January 1898.

Reference:
-Max Kurzweil, Ein Maler der Wiener Sezession, by Fritz Novotny and Hubert Adolph, Jugend &
Volk, 1969