Zoom
1891 Klagenfurt – 1949 Garmisch-Partenkirchen
- Title
- „Mountain Farmstead“
- Time
- around 1930
- signed
- lower left “Mulley”
- Technique
- oil on canvas, original frame 41 × 70 in.
- Measurements
- 33¾×63 in
A deep, unshakeable love of his alpine homeland permeates the impressive works of the Austrian painter Oskar Mulley. Born in Klagenfurt in 1891, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1910–1913, lived and worked in the Tyrolean town of Kufstein from 1918 onwards, and eventually moved to Garmisch- Partenkirchen in Bavaria in 1934. Apart from his time spent studying, he was always surrounded by the glorious peaks of the Alps, and quickly established himself as an extremely successful painter of mountain scenes. His unmistakeable, pastose style of painting and his choice of natural motifs full of raw beauty (and always without people) make Oskar Mulley’s works highly recognizable.
This painting exhibits a skillful, almost relief-like application of color, for which the painter used a palette knife to apply the paint vigorously and confidently to the canvas. The view of a mountaintop farm in front of an imposing mountain range that towers above all else is testament to Mulley’s reverent admiration for the inhabitants of this wild and romantic landscape. The massive buildings of the farm seem to blend into the rocks, and in contrast to the dark valley are bathed in bright sunlight.