LINZ.- Lentos presents a major solo exhibition devoted to the painter erika roessing in Linz. Around 100 paintings reveal a rigorously developed body of work dedicated to still life. Birds, fruit, baskets, pitchers, and vases appear in ever-changing arrangements, combining with geometric ornament to create quietly poetic, sometimes melancholic pictorial spaces.

roessing's Œuvre, documented in her notebooks, comprises about 180 still lifes. Working primarily in tempera on hardboard, she developed a muted palette, textured surfaces, and carefully balanced compositions. What initially appears calm and familiar often proves enigmatic and unexpectedly surreal on closer inspection: objects float, fragment, or dissolve into ornamental structures.

At the heart of the retrospective is a gift of 50 tempera paintings from the estate of the artist, who died in 1977, made in 1979 to the Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, the predecessor of Lentos. Works from the collection are complemented by private loans from her long-lost early Œuvre of the Nazi era, presented here for the first time. Selected works by her husband, Karl Rössing, a leading Austrian printmaker of the twentieth century, also illuminate the couple's lifelong artistic dialogue.

"erika roessing's largely unknown Œuvre reveals a remarkable brilliance in her first retrospective since 1980. She consistently developed her artistic voice within a single genre: still life. Representational and abstract elements are held in balance; the images remain enigmatic and imbued with quiet poetry. With this exhibition, we continue our work to bring visibility to significant yet underrepresented women artists in our collection and to examine their biographies in all their complexities." -- Hemma Schmutz, Director, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz:

"With this exhibition, Lentos brings renewed public attention to erika roessing, an artist whose work is closely linked to the history of our municipal collection. Karl Rössing's gift in 1979 makes it possible to present around 100 paintings today. This rediscovery demonstrates the importance of highlighting the work of women artists in our own holdings and addressing difficult chapters of their biographies transparently." -- Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, City Councilor for Culture, Linz

A Life Devoted to Still Life

Born in Nisko, Galicia, in 1903, Erika Glöckner grew up in Sarajevo and Vienna. She began her artistic training with Irma Necker, continuing in Georg Schmidthammer's studio in Linz and at the ceramics school in Gmunden. Franz von Zülow was particularly influential in shaping her understanding of surface, rhythm, and ornament.

In Gmunden, she met the printmaker Karl Rössing, whom she married in 1922. Their artistic symbiosis was marked by mutual influence, but also by constraints on erika roessing's own practice.

A study trip to Rome in 1932 and subsequent visits to Italy had a lasting impact on her visual language. She combined ancient wall paintings and ornament with inspiration from Giorgio Morandi and Mario Sironi. From 1949 onward, she developed an independent body of work devoted exclusively to still life, which she documented continuously until her death.

Early Success during the Nazi Era

For the first time, the Lentos exhibition examines a problematic chapter in roessing's biography in depth. In the 1930s and early 1940s, she painted mainly large-scale floral still lifes recalling the Old Masters. Their detailed naturalism and rejection of abstraction conformed to the aesthetic dictates of Nazi art policy.

In 1937, roessing joined the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts, membership in which was required to practice publicly as an artist. There is no documented evidence that she joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Her husband, Karl Rössing, however, had been a party member since 1933/38. Between 1941 and 1943, five of her floral still lifes appeared in the propagandistic Great German Art Exhibition in Munich. In 1941, the senior Nazi official Hartmann Lauterbacher purchased her painting Blumenstück (Flower Piece), shown there, for 1,600 Reichsmarks. She also received commissions from the Hamburg Air District Command.

A bombing raid in February 1944 destroyed the couple's Berlin apartment and studio, along with most of their work. After the war, the painter distanced herself from her involvement in the Nazi art establishment; later exhibitions omitted this part of her biography. The current retrospective presents private loans from her long-lost early work and places them within the historical context in which they were created.

The Magic of Things

Despite its limited repertoire of motifs, still life offered roessing a broad field for experimentation. Her paintings draw on the genre's long tradition while increasingly departing from naturalism. Vases, apples, doves, baskets, and citrus fruit become bearers of cultural and personal meaning. These objects appear familiar yet resist any definitive interpretation.

Vases and baskets became central motifs in the 1950s and 1960s. roessing initially depicted vessels in a New Objectivity style, later treating them in an increasingly planar and abstract manner. Doves populate her early still lifes in particular. They symbolize peace, love, and fidelity, but may also express a longing for freedom. The 1970 series Gefangener Vogel (Captive Bird) depicts a bird confined in a vessel. Recurring grids and fences can be read both as protection and as signs of confinement. These images also touch on roessing's position as a woman artist who often subordinated her own work to that of her respected husband. Apples appear whole, halved, or floating in space, linking beauty and fertility with temptation, knowledge, and transience. For roessing, however, the apple primarily expressed the idea of an enduring present. Empty or damaged baskets become surreal pictorial objects. Oranges and lemons evoke the couple's regular visits to Italy and introduce vivid accents into the muted palette. Especially from the 1970s onward, geometric grids, honeycombs, and crystalline forms came to the fore. Drawing on Franz von Zülow's influence, she developed a distinctive visual language that balances representation and abstraction.

A Dialogue with Karl Rössing

Karl Rössing ranks among the leading Austrian printmakers of the twentieth century. His wood engravings and linocuts combine social criticism, humanism, an engagement with nature, and an exploration of classical antiquity. The exhibition juxtaposes selected works by the printmaker with roessing's still lifes, revealing how the couple shared motifs, formal concerns, and artistic judgments over decades while developing very different artistic trajectories.

Following erika roessing's death in 1977, Karl Rössing donated 50 of her tempera paintings and 164 of his own works to the Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz in 1979. This gift forms the core of her work in the Lentos collection and provides the basis for the current rediscovery.