I know I am giving alot of space to those Vienna secessionist dilettantes but I have found something today it was just impossible for me to ignore, a work that may be LH Jungnickel's earliest signed graphic production. It uses the technique discussed in 'LH Jungnickel: two new animal prints'. One of them is not a print at all but a stencil. In German it is Schablonenspritztechnik, the English equivilant being stencil spray. The work itself is called 'Sonnenstrahlen im Tannenwald', quite a mouthful, that translates as 'Sunrays in the pinewood'.
This stencil is coming up for auction on 3rd March at Palais Dorotheum in Vienna and they give the date as 1903. The previous year Jungnickel had left his job as graphics designer at the Stollwerck chocolate factory to enroll at the Kunstgewerbeschule under the seminal designer Alfred Roller (1864 - 1935). I include the poster Roller produced for the 1902 Secession exhibition (that centred round Max Klinger's sculpture of Beethoven) because it gives an idea what students gained from his work. (Emma Schlangenhausen was also to benefit from Roller's example soon afterwards). Jungnickel hasn't only borrowed the dimensions, he came up with a subtle variation on Roller's overall patterning. (He must also have seen Klimt's landscapes.) Without doubt his basic inspiration was Japanese katagami - bamboo dyer's stencils - but according to the British magazine The Studio Jungnickel invented this particular technique of (I think) applying ink through a gauze plate laid over a stencil. Modern German children use a toothbrush but of course Banksy uses an aerosol. What LHJ used, I don't know, but I offer a close up of his woodland along with the Macaque monkeys form the previous post.
You can see the combination of stencil and spraying in both works. I assume the monkeys are later where he appears to have sprayed the whole coloured area. It is specially interesting to see an artist responding to a course of study and in fact publishing these works (at a time when novelty was at a premium) apparently represented his breakthrough. As work, they are probably more interesting than they are rewarding and I can see why he went on to develop his colour woodcuts. As a technique it has obvious restrictions. And I think this is how the stencils need to be seen - in the context of the rest of his graphic work: the posters, the postcards for the Wiener Werkstaette (see 'Yours truly, LH Jungnickel') and his designs for Josef Hoffmann.
As a postscript I should add that I think I used to own something using a technique like this. I sincerely hope it wasn't by Jungnickel because I gave it to a friend! As a PPS, Dorotheum are expecting something in the region of 2,000 € for the stencil even though it is damaged. Just so that you know. As modern graphics go, this makes it pretty interesting.
As a postscript I should add that I think I used to own something using a technique like this. I sincerely hope it wasn't by Jungnickel because I gave it to a friend! As a PPS, Dorotheum are expecting something in the region of 2,000 € for the stencil even though it is damaged. Just so that you know. As modern graphics go, this makes it pretty interesting.
