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1904 Wuppertal-Elberfeld – 1981 St.Veit/Jauntal
- Title
- „Kegelbuben“ („Pin Boys“)
- Time
- 1976
- signed
- monogrammed lower left "w.b."
- Technique
- oil on canvas
- Measurements
- 18 × 29 ¾ in
Werner Berg catalogue of works no. 1084
cf.: Werner Berg Museum Bleiburg/Pliberk, inv. no. 0813.
For many centuries, bowling was a popular pastime among the rural population of the Austrian state of Carinthia. At folk festivals and markets, this sport was played on clay bowling alleys, built outdoors and bordered by wooden planks. Bets were usually made for money and many a farm was gambled away in this way. The pin boys were responsible for resetting the pins after a strike and rolling the balls back to the players. If their services were not required, they would lean against the wooden walls and wait for their next turn.
In 1931, Werner Berg acquired the remote Rutarhof in Lower Carinthia, where he intended to lead a simple life as a farmer with his family and his poet friend Kurt Sachsse. The proceeds from the farm were meant to support his independent artistic career. Until his death in 1981, Berg painted everyday farm life in his distinctive style, inspired by German Expressionism, with bold, intense colors and emphasized contour lines. “Is there anything more mysterious than clarity?” – this quote from the French philosopher Paul Valéry accompanied Werner Berg during the development of his reduced, essential style and throughout his entire artistic life.
Werner Berg developed the motif of the pin boys in the 1960s and 1970s. The contrast between the vertically standing figures and the horizontal wooden walls of the bowling alley was staged by Berg in a composition of taut calmness and mysterious radiance. A comparable painting can be found in the Werner Berg Museum Bleiburg/Pliberk.