“Gustava Landerer,” created in 1933, is a spectacular portrait of a collector from Breslau, set against a modernist interior. This magnificent painting was the work of well-known set designer and painter of the interwar period, Hans Wildermann. In 1926, he was appointed as a professor of scenic painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Breslau. A decade later, he was entrusted with the artistic decoration of the Opera in Breslau.
In the painting, Gustava Landerer, dressed in a revealing dress, confidently gazes toward the viewer. Behind her, an ancient sculpture of a young man is visible. The distant perspective, open to the clear sky, is typical of Wildermann’s painting. The motif of an open window or door, reminiscent of Renaissance art, was willingly utilized by the artist accustomed to working with three-dimensional elements of scenography.
The depiction of “Gustava Landerer” differs from other typical portraits, whose main function was to capture the facial features and characteristic traits of the model. Portraits painted by Max Slevogt, who also immortalized Gustava Landerer, belong to the more classic type. In comparison, the painting “Gustava Landerer” conveys a very specific message to viewers. The expression and strength of Wildermann’s painting are exceptional. It portrays a radiant woman, a patroness of the fine arts, a rarity even among emancipated Jewish women in the time of the Weimar Republic. This portrait, painted in 1933, emerged at the end of an era characterized by the cultural activity of German Jews in Breslau. This splendid chapter in the cultural history of the city was soon to come to an end with the rise of the Nazis to power. The image of an independent woman, a co-creator of a collection of modernist paintings, depicts a world that succumbed to destruction.
As a result of the Nazi occupation, the Landerers escaped Germany. The portrait was taken by the family to New York, thereby preserving it. In 2009, it was auctioned at Christie’s auction house.
