Fräulein Engelhardt

Motesiczky was the most distinguished European artist to settle in the UK in the late 1930s, having been displaced by Nazism. Her instinctive interest in character provoked a vein of story-telling that went against the modernist trend in 20th century art and allied her with two great Expressionist painters, both friends and supporters, Max Beckmann and Oskar Kokoschka. Beckmann in particular encouraged her interest in allegory and symbols used by the old masters. This is a brilliant, early work, painted by the 20-year old artist in the graphically simplified style of her mentor, Max Beckmann, but with her distinctive subtlety of expression, colour, and emblematic attributes. This is the first Expressionist painting to enter the Hunterian collection.