Porträt einer Dame. Wohl 1920s.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower right. 70,5 x 56,5 cm (27,7 x 22,2 in).

Heinrich Heidner was born in Schoppershof near Nuremberg on 4 February, 1876. At first he studied from 1891 to 1896 at the Nuremberg School of Arts and Crafts and then he studied painting at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts under Carl von Marr and Wilhelm von Diez from 1898 to 1902. After he had completed his studies he founded a private Mapainting school in Munich, which he headed until 1907. Between 1915 and 1917 Heidner served as war painter at the Western front. The expressionist views he made there render striking account of the atrocities of World War I. They were acquired by museums and made for his artistic breakthrough. From 1933 to 1945 Heidner lived withdrawn from public life. After World war II, however, he again participated in social life eand founded the ‘Notgemeinschaft bildender Künstler‘ (emergency alliance of visual artists) in Gstadt. The following years Heidner was awarded numerous honors: In 1961 he received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 1965 the Culture Award from the City of Rosenheim, in 1966 the honorarium of the Free State of Bavaria and in 1971 he became honorary citizen of Gstadt. Heinrich Heidner died at an old age in Allmanshausen on Lake Starnberg on 7 May, 1974. This charming female portrait calls reminiscence of the melancholic depictions of women by Amedeo Modigliani, and yet, they carry the very own style of Heinrich Heidner. With clear and lucent colors he created a composition both high in contrast as well as soothing-sensual. [KH].