Nude Woman

Description

Herbert Boeckl
Austria, 1894–1966
Nude Woman
circa 1925
Charcoal on paper
Gift of the Ernst Pulgram and Frances McSparran Collection, 2007/2.122
Figure study was a universally important practice in academic circles and remained central to the development of Expressionist formal style. As the foremost symbol of the human condition, the human figure became the central motif in Expressionist imagery. Some Expressionists consciously aimed to “reinvent” the nude in contrast to academic art practice, while other practitioners used traditional figure studies as the foundation for their highly personal and abstracted styles.
Herbert Boeckl was a self-taught painter who had originally trained as an architect under Alfred Loos. He met both Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka just prior to the outbreak of World War I, and in 1939 he became a professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna. For nearly thirty years (1939–1966) Boeckl directed the Academy’s Abendakt, or evening nude drawing classes, where he encouraged generations of Austrian artists to discover their own individual styles through traditional practices.