ARTIST: Walter Koeniger (New York, Germany, 1881 - 1943)
NAME: Landscape
MEDIUM: oil on board
CONDITION: Normal wear. No visible inpaint under UV light.
SIGHT SIZE: 14 x 17 1/2 inches / 35 x 44 cm
FRAME SIZE: 18 x 22 inches / 45 x 55 cm
SIGNATURE: Lower left
NOTE: Alderfer Auction Company, Auction Date 2008-09-12, Lot 3219
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
SKU#: 115831
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Walter Koeniger (New York, Germany, 1881 - 1943)
Walter Koeniger was the son of an architect, born in Germany in 1881. From architecture, Walter turned to painting, while still in Germany. He studied under Eugene Gustav Ducker and Eduard Karl Franz Gebhardt at the Dusseldorf Academy.
Koeniger immigrated to the United States around 1910 and settled in Woodstock, New York in 1912, where he abandoned his earlier style of photographic realism in favor of a more painterly, expressive technique. He concentrated on capturing the fleeting moods of nature during a period when the winter scene genre was rapidly rising in popularity. Koeniger focused on views of the Catskill Mountains and wooded areas around Woodstock and Saugerties.
His activities at Woodstock (where he died in 1943) are not well known; apparently he was not involved with the artists’ colony there. He painted in broad, large strokes, rendering brilliant sunlight and glowing color harmonies, soft gradations on color in the sky, streams and forests. The artist adapted the blue and purple shadows of the impressionist aesthetic. A plein-air painter, even in winter, Koeniger would reportedly delay the completion of a painting until the setting sun would add the proper tint of orange to the scene. One historian said Koeniger had a “passion” for “frozen, snow-covered scenes of winter.” His work was popular and was sometimes used on the covers of Literary Digest. Later in his career, Koeniger maintained studios in both Woodstock and New York City.
Member of Salmagundi Club.