Biography:
Herbert Gurschner, who was born in the Tyrolean capital Innsbruck in
1901, received his first training at the arts and crafts school in his
place of birth and then went to the Munich art academy. His oeuvre is
partly shaped by his Tyrolean homeland. The main themes here are views
of the surroundings and show rural life. Through his English wives he
finally lives and works in London, where he frequented aristocratic,
economic and cultural circles and so his artistic success with
exhibition activities took the right course. He became one of the most
sought-after portraitists in European society.
His portraits
include, among others, Lawrence of Arabia and King Gustav of Sweden.
With the Second World War he finally received British citizenship and
served in the army. After the war, however, his participation in
exhibitions fell sharply, as he now devoted himself more to stage
design. The composition of the present woman portrait is reminiscent of
portraits from the Renaissance such as the "Mona Lisa". The lady,
Princess Pilar of Bavaria, depicted here in elongated proportions in the
finest style, is one of the artist's most famous portraits. The sitter
with a thoughtful look wears a simple, bright blue dress and sits
directly opposite the viewer. With her hands crossed, she sits in a
window niche in front of a landscape view with suggested castles on high
hills to the right and left.
The artist takes up the blue of
the landscape again in the color of the princess's eyes and continues to
direct the viewer's gaze to the two turquoise rings on her two graceful
hands. A certain distance and coolness emanates from the sitter, which
is typical of the art of New Objectivity of the 1920s / 30s. Desmond
Chapman-Huston writes about the portrait: “Against a background of the
Bavarian Alps and Lake Starnberg - where her unhappy ancestor King
Ludwig II. tragically found his rest - the painter has placed the
stilled figure of the Princess, little austere and withdrawn, with the
blue eyes of the Wittelsbachs and the Bourbons d'Espagne, red-gold hair
and marvelous folded hands. Behind a smile, as subtle and unrevealing as
that of Mona Lisa herself, is the history of the House of Wittelsbach
for eight hundred years (...). ”(Widder p. 43/44). To Chapman-Huston's
book“ Bavaria the Incomparable ”(1934) María del Pilar, Princess of
Bavaria (1891–1987) worked with, so here he provided a very personal
description of the girlfriend.