2070
Spiro, Eugen (Eugene) school
1874 Breslau - 1972 New York.
Portrait Eugene Spiro. The artist, smoking a cigar, in front of one of his landscape paintings.
Oil on canvas. Unsigned. Verso on the stretcher a branding stamp of the US Art Canvas Co., New York. Verso on the back of the frame a printed collection label handwritten inscribed with the work's data and the provenance.
H 76, W 61 cm (support). Original frame.
This painting shows the artist Eugen Spiro, who was born in Breslau, sitting on a wooden armchair with a concentrated gaze absorbed in a booklet while he casually balances a cigar between his lips. By comparison with other (self-)portraits of the artist, one can conclude that he was depicted here around his 70th year. At this time, i.e. in the 1940s and early 1950s, he was living in New York and passing on his great talent in teaching to the next generation. In contrast to his self-portraits, in which Spiro predominantly seeks eye contact with the viewer, the pupil in this unsigned work has shown him in profile and added the painting dominating the background as a reference to the master's oeuvre, which is probably a French landscape by Spiro from the 1930s.
We would like to thank Mr Marco Zambon, Galerie von Abercron, Munich, for the kind remarks via E-Mail, based on photos, 01.09.2021.
Provenance: according to the consignor purchased at Kuhlmann & Struck, Hamburg, in March 1996; since then private collection Hamburg and Markgräflerland.

Condition report