Stillleben mit Malutensilien

Ottilie Wilhelmine Roederstein, born in Zurich in 1859, was an internationally respected artist during her lifetime.[1] After an initial period of training in Zurich and Berlin, she continued her education from 1882 in the so-called "Atelier des Dames" of Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran in Paris.[2] In Paris, the artist regularly exhibited her paintings at the salons from 1883 to 1913 as well as at the world exhibitions of 1889 and 1900. In 1891 Roederstein settled in Frankfurt am Main together with her partner, the German gynaecologist Elisabeth H. Winterhalter. Here the two women, whose partnership was socially accepted, became involved in the local women's movement. In 1909, they moved into a house built especially for them in the modern style in Hofheim am Taunus, where they lived until the end of their lives. Roederstein was a sought-after artist until her death in 1937. After the Second World War and the spread of Abstract Expressionism and Informel, however, her figurative work very quickly fell into oblivion. Roederstein initially oriented herself towards the dark-toned painting of the French art academy, later on towards that of the masters of the Italian and German Renaissance. In her early years she also experimented with the then rediscovered technique of tempera painting. Around 1900 she gradually lightened her palette. After an Impressionist phase, she found her way to a functional, sober pictorial language in the 1920s. Roederstein specialised in figure paintings, mainly portraits, which she commissioned, but she also painted allegorical and biblical subjects as well as nudes and scenes from everyday life. In addition, the painter was also known for her still lifes. These are often characterised by a clear and simple pictorial structure, such as the 'Still Life with Painting Utensils' from 1930. On a red-covered surface it shows a plain beige ceramic pot in which six brushes of different types stand. In front of it, a rectangular palette is placed at an angle, which in turn holds two brushes. On the palette, the artist has applied the three primary colours blue, red and yellow in mixed tones. Within the whole composition, which is built up of warm red, orange and yellow tones, the blue colour spot is given a strong weight. It is characteristic of Roederstein how skilfully she combines the sparse objects into an exciting whole by means of different diagonal placements. The attributes of the painter's profession appear very rarely in her still lifes. They appear more programmatically in three self-portraits in which the artist confidently portrays herself with brushes in her hands. 'Still Life with Painting Utensils', which perfectly complements the Kunsthaus Zürich's inventory of Roederstein's paintings, was once in the collection of Theodor Wolfensperger, bank director and Swiss Honorary Consul in Frankfurt am Main.[3] Together with his wife Anna Elisabeth, he managed to gather more than thirty works by Roederstein. Source