A Girl Holding a Rose
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Research Marjorie Gregson
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Acc No 232
Artist Raphael Kirchner Artist dates 1876-1917 Medium coloured print Size unknown Date produced (original painting:1916) Donor unknown acquisition method Date donated unknown |
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ARTIST
The artist was born in Vienna, Austria. His father, a skilled calligrapher, wanted his son to take up a musical career and Kirchner attended the Conservatoire in Vienna for a time before attending the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna from 1890 to 1894. In his early commercial work he received critical acclaim and in 1897 his first set of postcards, Wiener Typen, was published. 
He was greatly influenced by the Art Nouveau movement and is often compared to Alphonse Mucha.
On moving to Paris he produced illustrations for such magazines as La Vie Parisienne as well as for books, posters and ceramics. He also painted portraits, few of which survive. 40,000 cards in his orientalist “Geisha” series were sold. His paintings of slim, alluring women were hugely popular and introduced to the British during The First World War. Prints of these “Kirchner Girls“ were also produced in large numbers and many decorated the walls of dug-outs, providing a welcome relief to the horrors of trench life. 
The Bruton Galleries in London represented his work and struck a deal with The Sketch allowing the paper to publish Kirchner’s pictures exclusively in England. When portfolios of his work were published by The Sketch they sold out in hours.
At the outbreak of war he emigrated to New York where he worked on the decoration of the Century theatre on Broadway, designing murals, costumes and painting portraits of cast members. Tragically, he died during an operation for appendicitis at the age of 42. “The Second World War may have been the golden age of pin-up art but it is Raphael Kirchner who can lay claim to be father of the genre.” 
Our print, which is in our catalogue as Woman in a Black Cape, is really entitled A Girl Holding a Rose. The original was painted in 1916.The prints have the words The Rendezvous and Bruton Galleries, London at the bottom of the picture. 
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