Oh, goodness. A bit of a stressful day, although it started off well. We are looking down the road to a move overseas or another place here in the US. It’s looking more and more like Australia will be our destination. Which is thrilling, exciting and terrifying. I don’t know ANYONE in Australia, but I guess that would be true about the places we are looking in the US, as well. It’s just - in the US, I don’t have to take an 18 hour flight to get home.
So, today I decided to tackle some of the bookshelves. (Don’t ask me why, we don’t have a departure date yet, but I felt the urge to purge.) If I’m going to have to ship everything in a container, I think I will be better off unloading things here than there. I ruthlessly slashed through my two shelves of cookbooks - having already purged once last year, I’m down to the GOOD stuff, unfortunately - and found loads of thick hardbacks not worth the space.
Then I opened some rubber trunks in my closet and found my trousseau from 27 years ago. Lingerie from my shower, pretty cocktail dresses for the parties given by friends of my parents, as well as some of my favorite dresses from early Army days in Charlottesville. I’ve dragged them from Georgia to Belgium to New Zealand to Germany and back to Georgia. Quite the heart tugging treasure trove. I tried on a few and kept the ones that still fit. But the waist, even after losing the pounds - she is thicker. No getting around it. Time to keep the memories but let the clothes go. So I’ve made lots of young ladies shopping at Goodwill VERY happy.
Next, I’m hauling some oil paintings up to Nashville to put in my sister’s stall at the antique mall. Since I love to write about art and artists, I thought I would show them off in case any of you want to head to GasLamp Too Antiques Mall in a few weeks. She specializes in Appalachian Primitive furniture - all found by my father, who has quite an eye and loads of knowledge.
That’s my sculpture head on the primitive table from my last trip to visit. Entitled My Demons. (Well, not mine in the artistic sense, I bought it from the sculptor.) My sister sold it PDQ, in three days. Happy happy! Her booth has become a bit of a treasure trove for the local designers. This is just part of it. Nashville loves their primitives and eccentric art. Well, I can help with one of those. ;)
I didn’t paint any of these, but they have given me much joy and pleasure over the years. I bought the still life paintings and toasting drunk couple prints in Germany. The alleyway is an oil by my artist cousin, David Boyd, Jr., plein aire extraordinaire. I love his work - but I have lots of my own paintings now. And walls aren’t getting bigger, people.
I love that last little still life. The background lets it down a little, but the way the artist confidently painted the glass pitcher and the walnuts - inspiring. I took some close ups so we could look at the brush work. Note the squiggles in the round part of the pitcher that make it tactile, you can almost FEEL the curves in the glass. And I love that lighter streak of green in the vertical neck part. Well done, unknown artist! Hmm, I might have to take the frame off to check for the signature. I wouldn’t want my sister to unknowingly sell a masterpiece. (As if. )
All the new houses seem to be open plan, so good walls are few and far between. And built in bookcases. And cabinets. I sometimes complain about the small kitchen in our little 1950s house, but I have LOVED having walls, hardwood floors and built in book cases. And a bar area. Note to self - you’ve done a great job giving away the crystal decanters and carafes from Germany, but you need to start on the glassware next. (The curse of living close to the Nachtmann’s Crystal outlet - I could hit every sale. And I DID. Hah!)
ANYWAY, on to our artist, Sigmund Walther Hampel, Austrian, 1867-1949. The little girl's portrait is of his daughter Ulrike. I've given you a close up of the face.
The painter Sigmund Walter Hampel was born on July 17, 1867 in Vienna. Between 1885 and 1888 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der bildenden Künste) in Vienna with Heinrich von Angeli, August Eisenmenger and Siegmund L’Allemand, but he rebelled against their teaching methods and was expelled.
He became thus a self-taught artist, studying old masters and observing nature. He was one of the co-founders of the Hagengesellschaft, and in 1900 he joined the Hagebund, which emerged from it. In 1911 he became a member of the Künstlerhaus, which held a major exhibition of his works in 1919.
He shared with his friend and contemporary Gustav Klimt his love for Lake Attersee in Upper Austria, and he usually spent his vacation in Nussdorf am Attersee. In 1938 he appeared in the Künstlerhaus before the public for the last time, then retired in Nußdorf am Attersee; in 1942 he settled in the Villa Ransonnet and died there on January 17, 1949.
Hampel’s painting style represents a bridge between symbolism and Art Nouveau. He rarely composed oil paintings, and his special watercolour tempera technique was widely recognised. He showed a high technical ability, for instance in his flickering “gold bronze drawings”, and a delicate sense of colour.
Here’s a little extra on a watercolor by Hampel from Sotheby’s.
A graduate of the Vienna Academy of Art, Sigmund Walter Hampel drew on an eclectic stylistic vocabulary, including Art Nouveau, Symbolism and inspiration from his peers associated with the Vienna Secession. The narrative ambiguity and degree of finish of The Dreamer is intentional, consistent with other works by the artist, and its van Eyck-ian architectural composition, Chinese textile designs and Tibetan thangka motifs clearly demonstrates his broad interests.
A friend of the designers Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser and neighbor of Gustav Klimt at Lake Attersee, Hampel found success in Austria and abroad as winner of the Grand Prix at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 and a Golden Medal at the 1908 Rio de Janeiro Exposição Nacional. Works by the artist can be found in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Albertina in Vienna and Neue Pinakothek in Munich, among others.
So - art from the mundane to the sublime. As they say, it’s in the eye of the beholder. I loved collecting these in dusty antique stores in little villages, but the time has come to release them and go forward. It’s tough. But I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow.