Two Sisters, 1945-46
bronze
78 cm tall
and dated 'Georg Ehrlich 1945 - 1946' and 'In Loving Memory / of Mira / Lilly Bettina Georg'
2020-08
Photo: Ben Uri Gallery and Museum
Ehrlich frequently depicted children and young people in his sculptures, often as symbols of hope. His earliest sculpture of this title was made in Vienna in 1932. This cast of...
Ehrlich frequently depicted children and young people in his sculptures, often as symbols of hope. His earliest sculpture of this title was made in Vienna in 1932. This cast of 'Two Sisters' (1944) is also available in a slightly larger format (125 cm), and a third version was sold to Essendon Primary School, Welwyn Garden City in 1947 as part of the Hertfordshire schools' initiative in which architects were encouraged to work with muralists and sculptors. The inscription suggests that it was originally cast as a private memorial for his wife Bettina (née Bauer, 1903 Vienna - 1985 London) - an artist herself, who forged a new career in England as an illustrator under the pen-name 'Bettina' - for her sister, Mira Marie Bauer (afterwards von Gutman, 1901-1944), who died in 1944, and probably represents the two sisters themselves as children, shown in a loving embrace. The signatories are Bettina, her mother (Lily Siegfriede Pavovich Bauer) and the sculptor himself.Both sisters have important associations with the art world: they were painted as children in separate portraits by the artist Max Kurzweil (Bettina in 1907; Mira in 1908); their aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, was famously painted as The Woman in Gold by Gustav Klimt, and their cousin, Maria Altmann, later fought a case for the restitution of the painting to the family.
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