Tree & Suburban Houses in Winter 40 x 34 Oil Painting-1930s – Hans Weingaertner
This 40 by 34 inch magnificent, Precisionist/New Objectivist style, unsigned oil painting on relined(circa 1950s) canvas depicts a 1930s-era suburban street with a multi-branched, fully-clustered tree in winter. I am confidently and without question attributing this masterwork to the New Jersey artist Hans Weingaertner (1896-1970.) There are compelling reasons or factors that support my assured attribution: First of all is the provenance. This painting came from the estate of Nathan Krueger who died in 1961 and who was a co-founder and co-owner of Rabin and Krueger, the iconic Newark gallery that operated between 1935 and 1974. Weingaertner was handled by Rabin & Krueger. Moreover and more importantly is that the tree, the horizontal shadow in the foreground, the stonework and front yard, the style & depiction of the house and the overall composition mimic a smaller version of this painting entitled Spring Crispness that was exhibited at the Weingaertner retrospective in 1993 at the Montclair Museum and is pictured here in my photos. The two paintings are without question based on the same scene and by the same hand. They both have elements of Precisionism, New Objectivism (emanating from Munich, Germany in the mid 1920s) and maybe a bit of Magic Realism. However, Weingaertner would only ever identify his work with New Objectivism. They are both clear, precise, highly refined, depictions of what suburban streets looked like when seen through a clarifying eye like Weingaertner’s. The highly articulated & distinctive structure of the tree is truly astounding. There are literally hundreds of small branches, too many to count accurately, and perched on a few higher branches are five birds which appear to be blackbirds. I had first thought that this was done by a fellow artist, Charles Goeller at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art. Both artists had a similarity with each other in style but this work was done by Weingaertner. I want to thank a very astute ebay buyer and art dealer and historian for steering me to the catalog photo which I have but somehow overlooked. In Munich,Germany abstract art and expressionism emerged and developed during Hans Weingaertner’s formative years, not far from where he was born in 1896 in the Bavarian village of Waldkraiburg on the Inn River. By 1929 he had resolutely rejected both expressionism and Impressionism in favor of what had been developing in his own work since his last few years in Germany and what was first named New Objectivity following a 1925 Mannheim exhibition of Objectivist artists. New Objectivity had roots in Munich and had an affinity with Giorgio de Chirico’s “pittura metafisica.” The depictions of the New Objectivity painters and Hans Weingaertner in particular do not contain emotional explosions, journeys into the mists of the mind or lack of control. Many of Weingaertner’s paintings could be spoken of as “clear enigmas.” He did few landscapes and when he did and used animals they were often used as metaphors for the human condition. This painting offered here is a beautiful painting and is an example and expression of one of New Jersey’s most accomplished and gifted artists. He died in New Jersey in 1970. This painting will be shipped for $195 via UPS insured.