Clara Lenz (1874-1963) Women At Work In A Lübeck Interior

Clara LENZ
(Lübeck 1874 – Weehawken ? USA 1963)
Women at work in a Lübeck interior
Oil on canvas
H. 131 cm; W. 96 cm
Signed lower right, dated and located “Lübeck 95”

Provenance: Private collection, Denmark

Daughter of the director and curator of the Museum am Dom (Natural History Museum) in Lübeck, Clara Lenz was immersed in this German intellectual environment from her childhood, which she left to go to Paris and the benches of the Jullian Academy. There she developed her painting, of which few witnesses seem to have remained in Europe. A few years later, in 1904, she married the paper industrialist Hans Lagerlöf, a Swede living in the United States where his business was located. They settled in the town of Weehawken in New Jersey and lived there until their last days.

Our large canvas is therefore a work of early youth, produced at the age of 18/19, even before Clara Lenz moved to Paris. Here it represents an area of the office of the house, perhaps hers, immortalizing two maids, one taking advantage of the light at the door to read what appears to be a small newspaper, the other standing and knitting, peacefully. The light shines through the door, grazing all the utensils and small pieces of furniture on the right, giving life to this composition that takes us back 130 years.