WILHELM JARUSKA (Vienna 1916 - 2008 Vienna), Kitzbühel, 1987

WILHELM JARUSKA*
(Vienna 1916 - 2008 Vienna)
Kitzbühel, 1987
mixed media/paper, 48,2 x 66 cm
signed W. Jaruska and dated 1987
verso signed W. Jaruska, dated 1987 and inscribed Kitzbühel Malerdörfl
Provenance: estate of the artist, private collection Vienna

ESTIMATE °€ 1.000 - 2.000
START € 1.000

Austrian painter, art educator and graphic artist of the 20th century. Representative of modernism after 1950 and representational painting. Studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule with Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann together with Arthur Zelger, Rudolf Korunka and Paul Kurt Schwarz. After World War II, very successful as a poster artist and commercial artist. From 1954 to 1976 he taught poster art and illustration at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, his students included Manfred Deix and Gottfried Helnwein. Involvement with the Austrian Expressionism of Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and Herbert Boeckl. Created in addition to portraits and figure paintings also landscapes from the forest and Mühlviertel but also from vacations in Carinthia and Tyrol.

After promising beginnings in the 1930s, the Viennese painter, graphic artist, book illustrator, poster artist, designer and educator Wilhelm Jaruska was only able to succeed as a painter again in the 1950s due to the confusion of the times. It was above all the precarious conditions between and after the two world wars, the gruelling war service and bread work in the first post-war years that made it almost impossible for Jaruska to develop freely as a painter. Jaruska's educational path led via the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and studies with Albert Paris Gütersloh at the Academy of Fine Arts to the Höhere Graphische Bundeslehr- und Versuchsanstalt in Vienna, where he worked as a professor. As a graphic artist, designer and painter, he was responsible not only for a series of posters, murals and children's book illustrations, but also for mosaics and concrete glass windows. His multi-faceted oeuvre spans a period from the 1930s to the recent past. Above all, his great mastery consisted in the fact that – regardless of which technique, stylistic basic trend or compositional structure he turned to in the individual creative periods – he always used the picturesque, which he knew how to distill from every seemingly trivial, everyday situation, into an effective one -Knew how to transpose in a striking way or into the harmoniously poetic. As a commercial artist, he was so familiar with all stylistic languages that he was able to deal with them very freely.
The designation "Malerdörfl" on the reverse refers to the indeed very picturesque Malerndörfl near Kitzbühel, where several old Tyrolean farmhouses like this one still stand. The bell tower on the roof, which is typical of the Tyrolean lowlands, is a traditional rural means of communication. The bell used to call for meals, indicate festivities and serve as an alarm signal. Wilhelm Jaruska shows us the farm in earthy colours as an organic part of the dynamically rising and falling natural landscape.

PLEASE NOTE:
The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° in the catalog), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax of 13% is added to the sum of the highest bid and the buyer's premium. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.