(Oberndorf 1891–1958 Kitzbühel)
Akt mit roten Schuhen / Nude with red shoes, on the reverse estate stamp, signed Guta E. Berger, geb. Walde, oil on paper, 50 x 24,5 cm, framed

Registered:
Archive Alfons Walde

Provenance:
Wienerroither & Kohlbacher, Vienna (in the 1990s)
Private Collection, Vienna

Alfons Walde was a brilliant painter with an unmistakably powerful and evocative application of colour. However, he also possessed a unique sense of the yearnings of the time and of a society that wanted to enjoy the lightheartedness of life after the restrictions and trauma of war. No artist has translated these desires into a modern visual language as convincingly and timelessly as Walde. His extensive oeuvre of nudes – albeit long hidden and known only in private - complements the world of nature and sport with the eroticism of female beauty. The focus never lies on the psychological aspect but on the allure of the feminine body. The artist, therefore, rarely painted from models, but took his inspiration from, among other things, postcards from the music halls of Paris and let his own imagination run wild. The silvery tone of this painting with its emphatically narrow vertical format underlines in flattering rhythm the beautiful contours of the nude confidently stepping in front of the curtain. The counterpoint of the bright red of the shoes and lips is extremely flirtatious and provocative.