Indonesian Scene - Java Boys

Two young Indonesian men by Austrian painter Emil Rizek, around 1930. A strong brush stroke & dynamic work.

Signed lower right "Rizek."
38 x 49,5 cm
52 x 63 cm with the frame
Frame: new.

From early on, Emil Rizek (Vienna 1901 - 1988 Vienna) took private art lessions with Anton Hlavacek and Carl Fahringer, a professor at the Vienna Academy. In his 20s, he traveled to Italy, France, Germany and Holland where he was associated with the “School of the Hague”, a group of Dutch Impressionists.

Fighting poverty in Vienna, Rizek decided to travel the world in a quest for adventure, artistic inspiration and a more affordable life. Rizek improved his skills as he traveled and developed a personal style. Landscapes, city views and genre scenes of everyday life and work are to be found in his oeuvre;his figurative works often portrayed laborers or workers with whom he had a sense of comaraderie.

Rizek painted the marketplace of Baliwith the same enthusiasm as he did and the ports of Northern Europe. He continued to travel the world: for years he stayed in Indonesia, Canada, the United States, Japan and South Africa. In 1938 he taught painting in Oakland, California, and also painted and etched scenes depicting San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Upon returning to Vienna, he found himself increasingly under pressure to be able to work under the Nazi regime. He was forced to serve in the Wehrmacht in 1941 as a war artist and reporter, mainly in Finland. He was captured by the British army and spent ten months as a prisoner in Ostfriesland near the end of the war.

Rizek was emotionally drained by his experiencesin the war and found it extremely difficult to return to painting. As his creative energies returned, Rizek started to travel yet again. In 1963, the "Artist’s Guild of Vienna" awarded Rizek a special gold medal in recognition of his artistic achievements.

Emil Rizek died in Vienna in 1988.