Monday 5 September 2011

Viktor Böhm


Viktor Böhm
(1880 Brno – 1954 München)
Czech/German printmaker and painter.


Sometimes Ebay is like a treasure cove. Finding this extra ordinairy woodblock print asked for an impulsive and immediate posting. It is signed and dated 1925. By a very talented but obscured printmaker. Still 9 days (sorry, it was sold or withdrawn within an hour after editing this article) to go. It’s neither befitting my budget in September nor is it in my field of collecting. So following in the footsteps of (are we just going to miss him) Clive's legendary "to have and to hang": take your chance. It certainly is very special, very rare and of great skill and the highest artistic quality. A little research on the www. resulted in just a few other but quite amazing prints by this Czech born printmaker

It is written that Viktor Böhm studied in the Akademie für Bildende Kunst  both in Vienna and in München where he later settled as an artist. He travelled into Scandinavia, Galicia (N.-Spain), Hungary and Italy.

But how he came to make these Chinese and Russian prints heaven may know. His future biographer will certainly have look deeper into Viktors travelling history account. 
High Lamas calling for prayer, Chambynks-Dazzan, 1918

Small temple at sacred Gooselake Chambynks-Dazzan 1918.

Russian village church, West-Siberia 1914

I found two oil paintings by Viktor Böhm too and that’ s all I could scratch together for this posting.

Shepherd boy with drinking goats
Again, after Karl Johne in a previous posting, a very good but forgotten Czech printmaker.

4 comments:

  1. Another interesting post about a lost artist - so under-rated the top woodcut went for only €21 in the Czech Rep. He is is quite unlike any of the German or Austrian printmakers we know. You would have thought the Vienna Secession never happened looking at these. Painterly and quite conventional, I would have thought he was Russian if you hadn't said otherwise.

    Charles

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  2. Well, it's good to know the recent history of this print (how did you ?) Such quality and lost in time. Can you imagine? I did my best to do him some honour.

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  3. Found another beauty by him just now: http://www.auktionshaus-ruetten.de/ufItemInfo.aspx?a_id=40532&i_id=239543&s_id=30766

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    1. Thank you Lily, I'll update the posting immediately and it coincides with another project beautifully. What a great print !

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