EDUARD VEITH (1858-1925)
PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN IN EVENING WEAR
Signed & dated l.r. E Veith 1917
Pastel & chalk on paper laid to card
98 x 67 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Germany
Eduard Veith was the son of a minor artist, Julius Veith (1820-1887), in Neutischein, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and is now part of the Czech Republic). He trained under his father at first, assisting him with his local business, before going to the museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he studied under Prof. Ferdinand Laufberger (1829-1881), and later completed his studies in Paris.
Veith returned to his hometown after his brief stint in Paris, to rejoin his father and work on the decorative schemes for local churches, synagogues and official buildings which he specialised in. During this period, he made several trips to Italy, Belgium and Tunisia, producing various topographical and figurative studies on these. He settled in Vienna after several years, where he opened his own studio and began to receive local commissions, earning a name for himself in the artistic milieu of the city. He was made a member of the Vienna Kunstlerhaus in 1890, was awarded a gold medal at the Grosse Berlin Kunstausstellung in 1896, and was appointed a Professor at the University of Technology in Vienna in 1905. He went on to the teach at the University of Applied Arts, in the same city, and eventually became a professor there shortly after the end of the Great War.
Veith was an important member of the Viennese school of Symbolism, painting mythological, religious and allegorical subjects which were very much in the same style as his peers in the North of Europe such as Moreau or Lévy-Dhurmer. He was also a sought-after and gifted portraitist, and the present large-scale drawing is an especially fine testament to his abilities as a draughtsman.