Carl Moll 1861 Wien-1945 Wien

After completing his initial art studies under Viennese landscape painter Carl Haunold, Carl Moll studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Christian Griepenkerl. However, his most influential teacher was Emil Jakob Schindler, who gave him private lessons from 1881 and remained a close friend until Schindler’s death in 1892. In 1895 Moll married Schindler’s widow. The practical instructions he received from Schindler for over a decade formed the basis for the quality of his own oeuvre. In 1897 he became one of the founding members of the Vienna Secession, however, he left the movement in 1905 together with Klimt’s followers. Carl Moll was instrumental in persuading the Austrian Gallery to purchase important works by Cézanne, Van Gogh and Renoir. While artistic director of the Miethke art gallery and dealership, he organised numerous exhibitions. As a director and exhibition organiser he travelled all across Europe, rediscovering important paintings and taking them with him to Vienna. From 1912 Carl Moll started working for private collectors who appreciated his infallible and intuitive grasp of the quality other artist’s works. His own works are characterised by his acute perception and sensitivity. In the period between Schindler’s death and the founding of the Vienna Secession he created many important works and while their themes and compositions were still true to the style of Historicism, most of them were already marked by his personal transition towards Viennese Art Nouveau. His later artistic output was in perfect keeping with the times and is to this day a wonderful testimony to the Art Nouveau period. He painted interiors and landscapes full of poetry. As a post-secessionist artist, Moll concentrated on landscapes and light, as well as on capturing the atmosphere and ambiance of the scenes he depicted. In 1930 he published a witty and compassionate essay on Schindler and continued organising worthy exhibitions well into the 1940’s.