Group portrait with Schönberg
Schönberg stands top left, Zemlinsky seated below him next to Ida and Mathilde. The third couple are not identified, but may be Karl Horwitz (Schönberg’s student) and his wife, Mizzi, who were on honeymoon. A sunstrewn backdrop, applied with a palette knife, shares the rich ochres and greens that typified Gerstl’s Gmunden portraits from 1908. Here, though, Gerstl stretched his evolving techniques, distorting faces, so that indistinguishable close up, they become gradually recognisable as the viewer draws back.
David Davies
1888