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Marie-Louise von Motesiczky: Re-negotiating the self-portrait as a woman émigré artist in the Nazi era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2022

MaryKate Cleary Open the ORCID record for MaryKate Cleary [Opens in a new window]
MaryKate Cleary*
Affiliation:
History of Art Department, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
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Email: marykatecleary@gmail.com
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Abstract

Born in Vienna in 1906 to a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family, the painter Marie-Louise von Motesiczky enjoyed a lively social life among the prominent figures of intellectual and cultural Vienna in the closing years of the Habsburg dynasty. She studied at art schools in Vienna, Paris, and the Netherlands, including with German painter Max Beckmann in Frankfurt. The Nazi rise to power cut short Marie-Louise Motesiczky’s career in Central Europe. She fled Vienna for permanent refuge in England. Like her mentor, Beckmann and her contemporary and fellow émigré artist, Oskar Kokoschka, Motesiczky considered the artistic practice of the self-portrait an occasion for self-questioning, self-affirmation, and self-discovery. Unlike her mentors, from early in her career, Motesiczky’s self-portraits had to negotiate the representation of a female subject. This article will investigate the ways in which Motesiczky’s emigration compelled her to reexamine the gendered parameters of the self-portrait and how that reassessment manifests itself specifically in regard to her engagement with the spectatorial gaze. Her position as an émigré artist will not be analyzed as a burden to be overcome but, rather, as the impetus for reexamining techniques and strategies of female self-portraiture.

Keywords

Austrian artself-portraiturewomen artistsJewish artNazi-era emigration
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 389 - 407
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Cultural Property Society

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