Joseph Lacina
Josef Lacina (Czechoslovakian, 1899)
Josef Lacina (b.1899-1975 Prerau, Lower Austria) (Czechoslovakian, Austrian Hungarian Empire) was a well-known Viennese artist of the 1st half of the 20th century. He specialized in tempera paintings (figures, landscapes) and other media such as oils, watercolors and woodcarvings. From hundreds of paintings he created, the paintings of the Artist's Wife, (1950s, Oil) seem to demand the most consideration at the auctions and the prices range from: 2500 USD plus Shipping, insurance and taxes generally add about 500EUR( ca. 750 USD) to the price.
To be in demand and rise above the numerous artists of the world; there is normally a special quality that encourages the art world to collect an artist work. We can only speculate what the qualities are but in addition to the proper technical applications often the time and place matter. The following background information might give some insight into the reasons this gallery chose this collection of paintings.
The environment surrounding Joseph Lacina was quite different than that of an American. His life started in a flourishing land that was the center of continental Europe and had been ruled successfully by the Hapsburg Dynasty since the early 1200’s (almost 800 years). It was a center for the waltz music of Strauss and the home of Mozart and Beethoven. The architecture of almost every building in the city of Vienna was exquisite (and remains protected and restored as does the music, dance and opera.) It was the time of the famous artist Gustave Klimt (1862 - 1918) whose painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was recently acquired by the Los Angeles Museum of Art at the value of $135 million. It was the time of the Vienna “Expressionists” who like their counterparts in France the “Impressionists” created art that shifted the presentation of art to allow the artist more discretion for what the artist thought was important. As the common man became more valuable in society so did the paintings acknowledging the changing times. A powerful time.
These political times were the direct result of the American Revolution for individual freedom in 1776 and the individual power to vote the choice of government. The American break from British oppression started something incredible! During the previous one hundred and twenty-five years before Joseph Lacina”s birth 1999, France overthrew their king 1789, as did Germany 1871 and of course Texas became free in 1836. Paintings prior to the birth of Joseph Lacina had changed from works displaying the royalty, nobles and bankers dictating what the subject matter was to be with their apparent arrogance and disregard for others to paintings that displayed the emerging power dignity and importance of the common man/woman who toiled through life. The vote changed the importance of the social strata. Paintings that portrayed the special moments of a different group of people were painted. It was a wonderful time in Vienna.
However, by the time Joseph Lacina was fifteen years of age (1914), a Serbian assassinated the crown prince of the Austria Hungarian Empire. Only a few years earlier, a Serbian had assassinated empress Sisi of Austria. Austria declared war on Serbia; the world chose which side to join based upon previous alliance agreements. Russia joined Serbia, as did France, Britain and the United States. Germany and Italy joined Austria. Austria lost and the Austrian empire diminished to a land the size of the state of Maine from an area about the size of the East coast of America but Austria had been the heartland of Europe.
Joseph Lacina was a free spirit trapped in a small area economically changed for the worse. He followed his passion and painted vociferously during the 20’s until he was 31 and the world was enveloped in a great depression impoverishing almost everyone. Things were bad but getting worse because Hitler raised his ugly head in the early 1930’s and won the German election promising a depressed Germany a better future. Before the citizenry realized it their newly gained freedoms granted 64 years earlier was taken from them by a tyrant. Hitler took Austria, a fledgling weak new democracy eighteen years old and Italy, Hungary France Belgium and all Europe but Russia and Spain. We see little work by Lacina from 1930’s to 1950 from his age of 31 to 51. We assume that Hitler had conscripted him for war. After the war there was no time to paint, only to survive. From 1945 to 1955, Austria had to struggle for survival. After liberation from Nazi rule, the country faced complete economic chaos. U.S., British, French, and Soviet forces occupied Austria until 1955. A treaty restoring Austrian sovereignty was expected early, but the atmosphere of the Cold War made agreement among the former Allied powers impossible. In 1953, however, a heavy financial burden was removed from the Austrian economy when the Soviet government declared that it would pay its own occupation costs (as the United States had done since 1947). There upon, the British and the French followed suit. Austria was an occupied country in which Joseph Lacina lived. The “cold war” was centered in Vienna and Berlin.
In the 1950’s art supplies were scarce. He used available paint and paint board materials to paint his wife. In our collection the self-portrait shows the weariness and strain of an old man that lived during the worst of times while we in the United States lived in the best of times. And we see the results of his effort to capture the various expressions of his wife as she became older and survived with him never to despair. But more importantly we see the love, respect, and understanding that he has displayed through his talent for portrayals of his relationship with his wife. We have the two ultimate paintings. First, of his wife created in the 1950’s (when she was older). And second, the respectfully created half nude painting in which Joseph Lacina’s shares his vision of his wife when she was younger and privately, lovingly, attractive to him.
We think this collection in its entirety tells a story that no one painting can tell. Nor could one successfully express this relationship in writing or by speech. It is unique for a time, place and person and records two survivors whose struggles we all can relate to in some way and admire.
We are 32 years past his death and about 52 years past his date of creating these paintings. We will respect his work and preserve it so others may understand better the full embodiment of the love and admiration between a man and his woman through adversity and the strength that is generated by the union. The relationship is timeless and is the basic strength of civilization.
Such were some of the highs and lows of a talented man. We can try to see in the self-portrait his character.
The Texas Masterpiece Fine Art Gallery will display art created from emerging thought. We prefer to encourage the brighter side of life realizing the struggles of fairness and morality. Our glass is half full rather than half empty because we live in a free society. We prefer to display a positive future of an emerging free people loving nature, themselves, one another and above all our creator.
Link to more Joseph Lacina Art:
http://www.artnet.com/artist/658600/josef-lacina.html
http://cgi.ebay.at/JOSEF-LACINA-FRAU-MIT-OBSTKORB-UND-VASE-Ol-Platte-1935_W0QQitemZ230217664792QQihZ013QQcategoryZ135683QQcmdZViewItem
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