Rating and value of paintings by Marie Louise von Motesiczky

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Rating and value of the artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky    

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky is an autruchian artist known to modern art enthusiasts. Now, the prices of her works are rising under the auctioneers' gavel.

Her oils on canvas are particularly prized, especially by French buyers, and the price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €40 to €20,300, a significant delta but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to the artist's works.

In 2023, his oil on canvas Nature morte, bol de fuit avec une grenade, dating from 1960 sold for €20,300, whereas it was estimated at between €1,000 and €1,300. Its value has risen sharply.

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

The artist's works and style

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky's style and technique reveal a poignant sensitivity and psychological depth that mark her work with remarkable singularity.

Her pictorial approach blends expressive figuration with a palette rich in earthy tones and subtle contrasts, creating works in which the intimate dialogues with the universal.

Inspired by contemporaries such as Oskar Kokoschka or Max Beckmann, it borrows from Expressionism its ability to convey emotion through the controlled deformation of forms, while retaining an anchoring in tangible reality.

Her portraits, often centered on familiar or anonymous figures, acutely capture moods, tensions and frailties, transforming each face into a mirror of human emotions.

In her technique, von Motesiczky favors superimposed layers of paint, creating a rich, vibrant texture that adds a tactile dimension to her canvases.

This process, combined with a subtle interplay of light and shadow, lends a unique depth to his compositions, where every detail seems to reveal a hidden part of the story or character depicted.

Backgrounds, often suggested rather than detailed, serve to reinforce the intensity of the central figures, while inscribing the subjects in a space imbued with atmosphere.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, with this technical mastery and incisive eye, transcends the conventions of her time to offer a work deeply rooted in the human.

Her paintings, at once intimate and universal, bear witness to an artistic commitment that places emotion and inner truth at the heart of her approach, making her a key figure in twentieth-century European expressionism.

The life of Marie-Louise de Motesiczky  

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky was born in 1906 in Vienna, into a cultured aristocratic family close to the intellectual circles of the time. Her youth was marked by a flourishing artistic environment, in which art and music played a central role.

She showed an early talent for painting and, encouraged by her mother Henriette, undertook studies with masters such as Max Beckmann, whose influence on her work was to prove decisive.

The years of apprenticeship in Germany and Paris strengthened her technical mastery and nurtured her imagination, while she developed a deeply personal sensibility.

The rise of Nazism in 1938 tragically disrupted her trajectory. Forced to leave Vienna because of her Jewish origins, she found refuge in the Netherlands, before settling permanently in London in 1939. Although painful, this exile marked a turning point in her artistic career.

Isolated from her homeland, she channeled her emotions into introspective painting, where the melancholy of loss shines through. Henriette, the central figure in her life, became a recurring subject in her paintings, her portraits conveying a tenderness mingled with a poignant lucidity in the face of old age and human frailty.

In London, although she moved within an intellectual circle that included Elias Canetti, her work remained relatively unknown to the general public. She rarely exhibits and prefers a discreet life, focused on her art and reflections.

However, her canvases, imbued with expressive power and profound humanity, assert themselves as unique testimonies of her time, bearing witness to both exile and resilience.

In parallel, she maintained a constant practice of correspondence and journaling, which shed light on her relationship to art and the human condition.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky passed away in 1996 in Hampstead, leaving behind a rich and intense body of work.

Today, her work is recognized as an essential contribution to European expressionism, combining personal memory with universal questions about loss, identity and hope.

The stylistic influences of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky

The stylistic influences of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky are part of a remarkable synthesis of tradition and avant-garde. Trained in Frankfurt under Max Beckmann, she drew on Expressionism for a bold exploration of the human psyche.

Her compositions reflect this influence through strong contours, slightly distorted forms and an intense palette, dominated by deep, muted hues.

This Expressionist heritage is integrated with his introspective approach, each brushstroke seeking to capture the emotional essence of his models.

Exile in London marks another key stage in his artistic evolution. The influence of British painters such as Walter Sickert, with their taste for intimate, everyday scenes, is reflected in his paintings, where detail and light play a crucial role.

In parallel, his knowledge of 17th-century Dutch painting, particularly in the treatment of textures and the mastery of lighting effects, further enriches his work.

The rigor of the New Objectivity, among others founded by Otto Dix, a movement seeking to combine realistic observation and a critical eye, also tinges its style with analytical depth.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky transcends these multiple currents to elaborate a deeply personal pictorial language. Her works, blending psychological truth and technical subtlety, embody a singular artistic vision, where each painting becomes a meditation on the human, memory and time.

The imprint of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky

The imprint left by Marie-Louise von Motesiczky on her era lies in her ability to reconcile the major artistic concerns of the 20th century with a deeply personal vision.

A painter of introspection, she asserted herself in a context dominated by historical upheavals and stylistic mutations, while remaining faithful to a quest for universal humanity.

Trained in the wake of Germanic Expressionism, she adopts an approach where line and color convey emotion as much as reflection, and where each painting becomes a window onto the soul of its subjects. 

Her exile in London, imposed by the tragic events of history, enriched her art by offering her a new cultural scene. She integrated into it with subtlety, bringing to the British tradition a breath of intensity from Central Europe.

Her way of fusing local influences and continental heritage enabled her to build a bridge between two artistic universes, becoming a discreet but essential figure in the post-war artistic landscape.

By comparing her work to that of Walter Sickert or the great Dutch masters, we perceive in her a desire to transcend genres, mixing portraiture, genre scenes and modern allegories.

Marie-Louise von Motesiczky also marked her period by the timeless dimension of her art. While the avant-gardes experimented with radical ruptures, she chose to follow a pictorial tradition that revisited the past while dialoguing with the questions of her time.

Through portraits of rare psychological depth and compositions imbued with sensitivity, she gives a singular voice to those who often remain on the margins of the great narratives.

Far from noisy movements and ephemeral successes, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky's legacy rests on a silent but vibrant body of work, which continues to resonate with its accuracy, sincerity and humanity. She thus leaves an indelible imprint, a witness to a troubled century and an unceasing quest for meaning.

She is today a woman relatively unknown to the general public, but whose sensitivity is appreciated by true modern art lovers. This does not mean that she is any less valued on the art market.

Her signature

Not all of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky's works are signed.

Although there are variations, here is a first example of her signature:

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