Franz Horst - Still Life

Oil on Canvas
Circa 1930, signed 'Franz Horst' lower right
Size: 50x71cm
Conditions: slightly retouched for restorative purposes

Franz Horst was an Austrian painter (1862 Vienna - 1950 Klosterneuburg) who specialised in portraiture, landscape, and military scenes, but he also enjoyed painting still life. He was a son of a drawing teacher and studied art in Vienna at the Academy of Arts with Carl Wurzinger, August Eisenmenger, and Christian Griepenkerl. He worked at the Vienna-Döbling from 1887 and resided in Klosterneuburg from 1896 where he exhibited in the local art galleries for decades. During 1899 he was commissioned by Austro-Hungarian army to paint scenes of manoeuvers, and these paintings can be found today in the Vienna Museum of Military History. In 1932 he was awarded the Silver State Medal.

Franz Horst painting ‘Still Life’, is a beautifully composed arrangement of roses, a gilded coffee table setting, a matching vase, and glass objects on a white linen table cloth. Horst masterfully displays his skilled brushwork through capturing an assortment of textures and reactions to the light that move your eye around the painting.