(Trento 1870–1940 Innsbruck) ‘Lerchen in Schnee’, according to note on reverse, signed and dated A. Nikodem 19, oil tempera mounted on canvas, 74 x 66 cm, framed, (K)

Colour sketch on reverse together with inscription in the hand of the artist: ‘Ao 306/6 Artur Nikodem Innsbruck-Tirol ... gruber 1919 Firnissen mit Weimar-Feigenmilch Rückwerts’ (?), inscription in shellac and oil tempera on the stretcher: ‘Oberbozen Herbst 1915’ (may refer to the colour sketch). Provenance: private ownership, Linz Nikodem, Artur As the son of an Austrian officer, he spent his childhood in Trento and then in 1885-88 he attended the Oberrealschule (higher vocational school) in Innsbruck. On matriculation he briefly studied at the Munich Academy under Defregger and Kaulbach and also in Milan and Florence. He gained lasting artistic impressions, however, during his military service in the navy in 1889/90, getting to know various Mediterranean areas and even Egypt. A stay in Paris in 1891/92, where he saw the work of Manet, Cézanne and Gauguin, gave his work strong impetus. After the death of his father in 1892 he became a post office clerk for the civil service; he was awarded a distinction in his examination and was stationed between 1893 and 1907 at Meran. He married the designer, Gunda Maria Wiese, in 1893. His painting, which he worked on keenly in his spare time, was concerned to start with with Jugendstil. In 1907 he was redeployed to Innsbruck on a permanent basis. He achieved recognition with his paintings. Already by 1911 Max Esterle was writing extensively about him in the ‘Brenner’. In 1915 Nikodem was enlisted as a telegraph officer; between 1916 and 1918 he was active with a troop detachment in Turkey. The impressions he gained of the orient had a great influence on his painting. In 1920 he retired and dedicated himself more to his art. He lived in a very reclusive manner, ... his painting, in the meantime, was becoming recognised widely. He participated in the large exhibition, the ‘Tiroler Künstler’ in 1925/26, which was shown in many German cities, after having exhibited several times in Innsbruck from 1914 onwards; in 1927 his work was shown in Berne and Vienna, and in 1928 in Nuremberg and Zurich. Around 1925 his pictures became more colourful and stylised. When Egger-Lienz, to whom he was linked through in friendship, died in 1926, Nikodem was considered generally to be the most important Tyrolean painter... Gertrud Pfandler, Tirol Lexikon, Verlag Rudolf Erhard, Firma Rauchdruck, Rum 1983, p. 280