Erika Giovanna Klien

Erika Giovanna Klien ( born April 12, 1900 in Borgo Valsugana, then Austria - Hungary, † July 19, 1957 in New York) was an Austrian- American artist.

Career

Klien studied 1919-1925 Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. One of her teachers was Franz Cizek, where she worked as a student assistant in the professional Art Nouveau. In his course on ornament shapes it has been introduced in the new art style Kinetism. This style emphasizes movement and modern vitality. He is inspired by the French Cubism, Italian Futurism and Russian Constructivism. Throughout her life she continued to develop the theory and technique of Kinetism and became the most important representative of this art movement.

Cizek invited to various international art exhibitions one, including to the Paris art exhibition in 1925 and the New York International Exhibition of Modern Art, 1927. After graduation, Klien was struggling to earn a living as an independent artist. She worked as a graphic designer and taught from 1926 to 1928 Art at the Elizabeth Duncan School in Klessheim near Salzburg. Works by Klien in 1928 exhibited at the 4th International Congress of Fine Arts in Prague.

1929 emigrated Klien for career reasons in the U.S.. With it, the new theories of art education for children from Vienna came to the United States. To earn for herself and her son 's livelihood, she taught in New York from 1930 to 1940 simultaneously at Stuyvesant High School, at the Spence School, at the Dalton School and the Walt Whitman School.

Personal life

On November 27, 1928, the unmarried artist in Graz brought her son Walter Klien to the world, who later became a famous pianist was. 1938 Klien received U.S. citizenship. On July 19, 1957, she suffered a fatal heart attack.

Exhibitions

Her works are among other things in the collection of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.

Footnotes

• Painter
• Austrian
• Americans
• Born 1900
• Died in 1957
• Woman