Secession XIV Exhibition

Details

Provenance:

Collection/Estate Serge Sabarsky, New York;

Collection/Foundation Vally Sabarsky, New York.

Description

– Created in 1902 for the exhibition of the Vienna Secession, which was held in honour of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven

– The poster shows an excerpt from the mural “The Sinking Night”, which hangs behind the Beethoven monument at the exhibition

– Roller co-founded the Vienna Secession in 1897 and was its president in the year this poster was created

In 1902, Alfred Roller designed the poster for the XIV exhibition of the Vienna Secession, which was held in honour of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). Max Klinger’s Beethoven monument stands in the main hall of the exhibition as a tribute to this artist who, as the catalogue states, “brought clarity to our view of art through his creative activity as well as through his words”. Roller, then president of the association, contributed a large, stencilled painting “The Sinking Night” as a huge backdrop to the sculpture, from which the poster shows a section. Embedded in a strict patterned ornamentation, floating, deeply inclined angelic figures carry the extinguished suns to their graves. Nature or man as a model is dissolved into purely ornamental, almost geometric forms in which the line of the human figure is merely schematically indicated. The poster picks up a single figure from the procession and combines it with bold, condensed lettering: Roller shows himself to be a master of poster art here, skilfully combining ornamental form, lettering and colour into a harmonious, almost artistic unison.