Description:

OTTO AXER (POLISH 1906-1983)
Seated Nude, 1966
oil on canvas
93 x 73 cm (36 5/8 x 28 3/4 in.)
framed dimensions: 94 x 74 cm (37 x 29 1/8 in.)
signed and dated lower left

PROVENANCE
Acquired from the family of the artist by the present owner
Private Collection, New York

LOT NOTES
Otto Axer was born on 3 August 1906 in Przemyśl, then in southeastern Poland. His childhood was spent in Lwów (Lviv), where his father operated a music school - an environment that no doubt nourished his early artistic sensibilities. In 1924 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, studying under prominent masters including Władysław Jarocki, Fryderyk Pautsch, and Wojciech Weiss, along with Jozef Pankiewicz.. After his formal training (completed by 1929 or 1930), Axer was awarded a scholarship to Paris, where he spent approximately one year expanding his aesthetic and technical horizons.

Axer’s artistic trajectory diverged early into the domain of scenography (stage design). Beginning about 1932, he worked with theatres in Lwów, Kraków, Łódź, and Warsaw, frequently in partnership with the influential theatre director Leon Schiller. His debut in scenic design with the Municipal Theatre in Lviv marked the start of a lifelong devotion to theatre as a visual medium. Between 1938 and 1939, he carried out scenographic works in Warsaw and Łódź (for instance, the production of Kobieta bez skazy in 1937-38) and continued collaborating with the theatrical avant garde. 

With the outbreak of World War II, Axer was forcibly drawn into the traumatic circumstances of the era. He was confined to the Warsaw Ghetto, but escaped and later participated in the Warsaw Uprising. When the Uprising fell, he was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag XIa Altengrabow, near Magdeburg, where he remained until the war’s end in 1945. After returning to postwar Poland, Axer joined the Polish Army Theater in Łódź and later relocated to Warsaw, becoming part of the scenic team at the Polish Theatre. From 1947 to 1952 he served as a lecturer at the State Higher School of Theatre in Łódź, and in 1959 he also began designing sets for Polish television. In 1973, Axer formally withdrew from his institutional ties to theatre and devoted his remaining years to painting and graphic work. 

CONDITION
Observed in frame, the painting is in good condition, some minor craquelure to the impasto, several small specks of paint loss upper left corner, Not inspected under UV light.

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Keywords: Polish Art, Polish Contemporary Artist, oil painting

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