Rudolf Wacker

(Bregenz 1893–1939)
Stilleben mit Engel (Still Life with Angel), signed and dated R. WACKER 26; signed, titled and dated on canvas on the reverse: Rudolf Wacker / Bregenz 1926 / "Stilleben mit Engel"; handwritten measures on the frame, oil on canvas, 48.5 x 45.5 cm, original frame
Listed and illustrated:
Max Haller, Rudolf Wacker 1893–1939. Biografie mit dem Œuvre Katalog des malerischen Werkes, Lustenau 1971, cat. rais. no. 32 (b/w-ill.)

Provenance:
Joseph Wacker, Reutte, Tyrol (present from the artist)
by descent to the present owner - Private Collection, Vorarlberg

Exhibition:
Innsbruck, Tiroler Secession, Kunstsalon Unterberger, August–December 1926

"What mysticism is in all things – when we see them for the very first time, in a very awake state... How much does each one tell of the course of the world and its own transformation? – Enough material – even without adding anything – to paint a picture from it, full of the strongest tensions."
Rudolf Wacker, Diary, November 22, 1926

This still life, completed by Wacker in February 1926 and later gifted to his cousin Joseph Wacker from Reutte, is essentially a portrait of five objects chosen by the artist from his own collection of folk art items: The Baroque angel with the charred feet and the glass painting the artist had brought back from Reutte in Außerfern in November 1925 after a visit to his paternal relatives. The red box with playing cards – often seen as an analogy to the "game of life" – and the black toy bird would later become favored props, as would the leafless geranium, whose gnarled stems form a symbolic parallel to the shapes of the angel.

In his œuvre, this painting is one of the last to be created on a textile canvas, where both expressionist and early New Objectivity stylistic features can be observed: on one hand, a deep tonality of colours, rough yet powerful contour lines, and a distinctive distortion of the figure; on the other hand, the noticeable isolation of the objects, which are arranged in a seemingly random yet tense diagonal or triangular composition on the slightly tilted wooden board. The movement of the figure remains in a stillness that enhances the impression of mystery and depth. "Wacker's harsh, sober style of unraveling things and the tension between contrasting motifs lend his paintings a disquieting intensity." (Rudolf Sagmeister)