January 2011 4 x 8 inch Skinny Page

These  pages were completed a year ago  in January 2010 when I was trying to 'work ahead' on the collaborations I had started.   I was quite relieved to discover I had a completed page almost ready to mail considering how busy this January is turning out!

For this particular page, the artist  (Frieda Oxenham) I am sending these pages  to chose   "Vienna" as her topic - and seeing as how I have yet to visit Vienna, I had to do a bit of research on this famous city.  What transpired from my reading were  two historical figures - Gustav Klimt and Bertha Von Suttner.

Bertha Von Suttner was an Austrian writer, born at Prague on the 9th of June 1843, the daughter of Count Franz Kinsky, Austrian field marshal, who died shortly after her birth. On her mother's side she was descended from the family of the German poet, Theodor Körner. After receiving a careful education she travelled abroad and resided for a long period in Paris and in Italy. In 1876 she married the novelist, Freiherr Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner (1850-1902), and for the next nine years lived with him at Tiflis in the Caucasus. After 1885 she resided at Schloss Harmansdorf, near Eggenburg, in Lower Austria.

The Baroness von Suttner, a fertile writer, produced numerous tales, books on social science and romances, among which the best known are Inventarium einer Seele (1882), Die Waffen nieder (1889), Hanna (1894), La Traviata (1898), Schach der Qual (1898), Martha's Kinder (1903), a continuation of Die Waffen nieder. She was at one time secretary to Alfred Nobel, and as a champion of the "brotherhood of nations", had much influence on him and others; and in this connection she published Krieg und Frieden (1896), Das Maschinen-Zeitalter, Zukunfts-Vorlesungen über unsere Zeit (1899) and Die Haager Friedenskonferenz (1900). In 1905 she was awarded a Nobel prize of £5000 for her endeavors in the cause of peace. Her Memoiren, full of interesting autobiographical matter, was published at Stuttgart in 1908.

Source:  Wikipedia

Her portrait is found on postage stamps and money and became the source of the images collaged and printed onto cloth below.  The images sources for both pages  are all adapted from public domain images  I found on the web.  The rich yellow background is a letter from Bertha I transferred onto cloth and Die Wafen Neider approx. translation from German to English is Down With Weapons.

"Bertha" - Vienna Page - Front 4 x 8

digital version 

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Many of his works are housed at the Kunstlerhaus Art Museum in Vienna, Austria.

Source:  Wikipedia

Because of his focus on the female body, I decided to repeat this theme along with the flavor of an Austrian "haus" in the background.

 

"Kunstlerhaus" - Vienna Page - Back 4 x 8 inches

(painting - Gustav Klimt)

digital version

Tweet