OSKAR LASKE (Czernowitz 1874 - 1951 Vienna), Nicolo and Krampus, 1940

OSKAR LASKE
(Czernowitz 1874 - 1951 Vienna)
Nicolo and Krampus, 1940
watercolor and pencil/paper, 18 x 18,5 cm
dated 1940 and inscribed Für die kleine Lili zum Nicolo 1940 Aki
depicted in Hagenbund, Vienna 2019, p. 49, N. 126
Provenance: Lili Gregor, Fine Arts Widder

ESTIMATE °€ 3.000 - 6.000
START € 3.000

Austrian painter, graphic artist, book illustrator and architect of the 20th century, especially of the interwar period. Studied architecture at the Academy under Otto Wagner. Apart from a course in landscape painting with Anton Hlavacek, self-taught painter. From 1905 member of the Jungbund, from 1907 member of the Hagenbund, from 1924 in the Vienna Secession and from 1928 in the Künstlerhaus. Travels through Europe to North America. Early landscapes and cityscapes with infusions of atmospheric Impressionism. Created biblical, historical and genre scenes, with a preference for narrative and multi-figure representations. Imaginative, detailed and humorous with an expressive yet sensitive use of color.

Oskar Laske, 1874 as the eldest son of the architect Oskar Laske senior and his wife Xavera, daughter of the Czernowitz master builder Anton Fiala, first studied architecture in Vienna at the Technical University and with Otto Wagner at the Academy. After graduating, Laske began practical work in the cottage association with building director Hermann Müller, and a year later continued his architectural studies at the Academy of Fine Arts with Otto Wagner. Laske joined his father's construction company in 1901 and worked there in the field of residential building architecture, built villas and country houses in Vienna and the surrounding area as well as factories and was considered a sought-after interior decorator. However, in 1904 Laske decided to pursue an artistic career as an autodidact. In 1907 he joined the Hagenbund and in 1924 the Vienna Secession, where he was regularly represented in exhibitions. Even before the outbreak of the First World War, Laske embarked on extensive painting and study trips that took him through Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. During the war, Laske first served as an officer in Galicia and subsequently on the particularly bloody Isonzo front. Later he became a k. u. k. (“imperial and royal”, referring to the Habsburgs dual monarchy Austria-Hungary) war painter.
In Oskar Laske's rich oeuvre there are also countless dedication sheets in which he practices the art of "cheerful finger exercise". Most of these small-format occasional graphics are watercolours, ink or pencil drawings, in which Laske presents figures from his cheerful and whimsical menagerie, who act as bearers of holiday or birthday greetings or invitations, or are intended to edify and amuse the addressee. Hans Tietze, who was a friend of Laske's, recognized very early on that Laske's funny ideas make us laugh and that "the painter could be considered a mere jester. (...) His humor is the fruit of a serious view of life, his inexhaustible joy in storytelling the result of haunting mass psychology.”
Oskar Laske dedicated some of these cheerful greeting cards to his great-niece Lili Gregor, known as “Froscherl” (little frog), who was a kind of foster daughter for Laske. This also includes the late watercolor "Nikolo & Krampus" from 1940, on which Oskar Laske immortalized himself with his own nickname - "Aki". The models for this personal Krampus greeting are the very popular Krampus cards, which have been sent out for various reasons since the 1880s. Laske combines the devil's messenger with St. Nicholas as the traditional bringer of gifts, but obviously cannot quite resist the suggestive touch characteristic of this type of greeting card: a naked girl kneels on the ground, ready for punishment by Krampus, the “tamed devil with grotesque masculinity” (Theresia Heimerl). Laske dedicated a whole series of frog watercolors and collages to his “Froscherl”.

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