LEOPOLD LÖWY (Vienna 1871 - 1940 Vienna) Creature oil/cardboard 15 x 10,5 cm monogrammed L.L, inscribed 66 ESTIMATE °€ 800 - € 1600 STARTING PRICE € 800 The artist and chess player Leopold Löwy Jr. was born into a Viennese industrialist family. At his parents' request, he was supposed to study and take over the family business. Löwy studied astronomy instead, where he also attended lectures in a wide variety of areas of knowledge. He devoted himself entirely to self-study and his drawings and lived in modest circumstances. Löwy accumulated knowledge and spoke and wrote five languages. Chess was a great passion; In 1893 he joined the New Vienna Chess Club. He was able to achieve great success in no time and caused grandmasters such as Tarrasch, Réti and Tartakower to falter. Nevertheless, he never managed to rise to the zenith of the chess world. As a regular guest at Café Central, he came into contact with Vienna's celebrities. The majority of his graphic work was created between 1900 and 1916 and depicts celebrities and chess players. In 1920 Löwy published a collection of fables, for which he also created the cover illustration. He continued his artistic work in designs for postcards, but also in illustrations for various Viennese magazines and created a variety of bizarre caricatures. His oeuvre of fantastic, humorous and unusual characters can be compared to medieval dramas or the works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. and Hieronymus Boschs can be compared, although they have a unique quality. The Jew Leopold Löwy was dispossessed by the Nazis on March 1, 1940 and expelled from his flat on Praterstrasse. To escape the horror of deportation, he decided to commit suicide. Further artists and styles: Caricature, drawing, graphic art, surrealism, fantastic realism, Alfred Kubin, Josef Engelhart, Ferdinand Schmutzer, Rudolf Jettmar, Josef Hoffmann, Carl Moll, Koloman Moser, Heinrich Lefler, Jules Pascin, Viennese Modernism PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights. In the case of normal taxation (marked °), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax of 13%, for photographys 20%, is added to the sum of the highest bid and the buyer's premium. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.