THÖNY, Wilhelm(1888 Graz – 1949 New York)

View from the window overlooking Notre Dame - Paris

Pen-and-ink drawing. Signed lower right.

Mat board cutout 21.5 x 26.5 cm. Framed & under glass : 50 x 60.5 cm.

Drawing as a greeting card to an unknown doctor, titled “View from the Window” in the upper right, with the location “Paris” and dated “December 30, (19)34.” With a short inscription: “Dear Doctor! My very best wishes to you and your esteemed wife! Yours sincerely, W. Thöny.” The artist had already moved from Graz to Paris in 1931, but remained in contact primarily with Jewish intellectuals and other émigré intellectuals. During this period, he created several drawings and watercolors depicting cityscapes of Paris, which he sent to his circle of friends with greetings. This card, too, should be understood in this context around the turn of the year 1934/35. Mounted and glued behind glass, two creases in the center, slightly browned, frame slightly chipped.

Austrian painter and draftsman; studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Gabriel von Hackl and Angelo Jank; member of the Munich New Secession from 1913, where he befriended Alfred Kubin, among others; in 1923, a founding member and first president of the Graz Secession; a significant Austrian artist of the interwar years; lived in Paris from 1931; emigrated to New York in 1938; lost his studio and his entire body of work in a fire in 1948.

Bibliography: Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon.