Egger-Lienz created over twenty versions or repetitions of „Das Mittagessen“ (Lunch), the first version dating from 1908. The present painting is listed in the Kirschl catalogue raisonné under M 464, but without an illustration …
Many labels have been attached to Albin Egger-Lienz: late historical painter, peasant painter, regional artist, blood and earth painter … What cannot be overlooked, however, is the fact that Egger, above all else, was continually searching for new forms of expression …
World War I was not only fought with guns, cannons and bombs but also with an unprecedented flood of images … Within this “trench impressionism”, one artist stands out like an erratic rock with his paintings: Albin Egger-Lienz …
He needs for his work … the entire circle of life: “Love (procreation), the mother, the children, the struggle, the regret and awareness … It is the mind of a painter who, inspired by the symbolist zeitgeist, wants to provide a setting for fundamental questions of existence through powerful images …
The exhibition “Giotto and the 20th Century” at MART Rovereto (6.12.2022 – 1.5.2023) will include two works by Albin Egger-Lienz: “Bauer und Bäuerin” (Farmer and Peasant Woman), c. 1920 and “Weihbrunnsprengender Bauer” (Farmer), 1907 …