Lot 241 | Otto Greiner | Nude Study of a Young Boy from Behind as well as Studies of a Hand

GREINER, OTTO
1869 Leipzig - 1916 Munich

Title: Nude Study of a Young Boy from Behind as well as Studies of a Hand.
Date: 1892.
Technique: Black chalk, heightened white on paper.
Mounting: Mounted with self-adhesive tape at the top.
Measurement: 60 x 45,5cm.
Notation: Inscribed, titled, dated and signed lower right: "Skizze zu einem Titelblatt "Steinzeichnungen von O. Greiner" Rom 1892".
Frame: Passepartout.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Adolph von Menzel attested to the young Greiner's extraordinary talent for drawing as early as 1890, when he was in the middle of his studies at the academy in Munich. Greiner came to painting as the son of a lithographer, yet these early experiences are particularly evident in his work. The symbolism of his friend and patron Max Klinger is clearly recognisable in his works; Greiner combines and expands it into lithographic cycles, which he produced there, having lived in Rome since 1892. The basis for all the paintings and prints were his design studies and sketches, which document his sophisticated technique and extraordinary perceptiveness. The four sheets shown here cover his entire creative period, which ended abruptly with the First World War and Greiner's early death in 1916.