§ Albert Reuss (Austrian 1889-1975) Seated Woman at a Table

§ Albert Reuss (Austrian 1889-1975) Seated Woman at a Table monogrammed (lower right), oil on canvas Dimensions:61cm x 71cm (24in x 28in) Provenance:ProvenancePrivate Collection, UK. Note: Out of Context and Out of Time: Works by Albert Reuss Albert Reuss’s work often evoked connections with Surrealism and in particular the work of Salvador Dalí and Giorgio de Chirico. Objects often inhabit and float in space: a dress-maker’s mannequin, three-legged chair or an isolated tree irregularly sit in abandoned landscapes having lost connection to their normal environment, which was presumably partly a reflection of Reuss’s own displacement.Born in Vienna in 1889, Reuss gained success in his own country with his first one-man exhibition held at the Würthle Gallery in Vienna in 1926. The show sold well and brought him the security of a teaching post as well as election to the Künstlerbund Hagen in 1927; he continued to make a living from his art for the next decade in Austria. However, following the Anschluss in 1938 Reuss fled to Britain, leaving behind his reputation and never to return to his homeland.After periods in St Ives and Cheltenham, Reuss and his wife eventually moved to Mousehole in Cornwall in 1948. They largely kept a distance from the thriving artistic community in St Ives and he continued with his distinctive style which was gentle and calm but with a melancholic tone.The Kunsthandel Widder Gallery provided a fitting description of this post-war work:'Objects, floating relinquished through space and having lost any foothold, predominate his imagery...Ripped out of their natural context, those objects tell the story of a voyage, of a kind of abandonment of an object that does not fit in its new environment. Reuss's artwork, style and choice of subject matter invoke an association with Surrealism. Dalí and Chirico are but the two most important artists…[who]…bring to mind Reuss's artwork. Reuss's depiction of people has a similarly estranged air about them as those of his objects. Taken out of context, of time, of place, the pictured people appear oddly strange. Melancholic and lonely, but also calm and gentle, Reuss's creations remind the viewer of the art of Josef Floch.'Reuss’s work is held in numerous significant galleries, notably the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Belvedere Gallery and Albertina in Vienna and the Newlyn Art Gallery in Penzance. He held regular one-man shows during his lifetime at the O’Hana Gallery in London from 1953, as well as receiving solo exhibitions in Birmingham and Cheltenham, amongst others.