Alfred Kubin
Pearl seeker, dream catcher.
He is considered the impressive creator of the worst of all conceivable worlds. Alfred Kubin was born in Bohemia as the son of a surveyor and a pianist. The family moved to Salzburg in 1880 with three-year-old Alfred. When he was ten years old, his mother died; Alfred found it very difficult to overcome this crisis, partly due to his strained relationship with his father, which led to him attempting to commit suicide at his mother’s grave in Zell am See in 1896. The demons of his childhood will haunt him for the rest of his life.
It was the last Sunday of the festival summer and I was already somewhat exhausted from the intense weeks before. The afternoon sky was gray and released an incessant rain. I was about to step away from the world for an hour when a call from a friend interrupted my plans. His favorite gallery would be hosting a finissage and he would be happy to have me accompany him.
My overcoming was rewarded with a knowledgeable tour from the gallery owner. The others had already moved on when we both stopped in the corner with the Kubin works and continued our conversation. I’ve been looking for a long time for an illustration by Kubin from his novel “The Other Side”, in which Salzburg is the template for the “Dream City Pearl” and the Blue Goose is also the location of the action. “Only the Blue Goose comes into consideration…” it says at one point, which obviously fueled my desire to create a connection between the novel and the Blue Goose in the form of an illustration.
More or less unintentionally and without any hope that he would be able to satisfy my demand, I told the gallery owner my wish. “I have,” came back without further ado and just as quickly we agreed to arrange a viewing appointment. Everything was due to chance: my visit, our conversation, the fact that the work was restituted, subsequently put up for auction and ultimately came into the possession of the gallery. I remembered what the word players say about chance, namely that what is due comes to you. I don’t know if that’s true, but it fills me with joy that I have a Kubin with the mischievous title to mark the 25th anniversary of my management of the hotel Authentic view of the dream city of Pearl could bring home, so to speak.
A few years ago I was invited to Siegfried Anzinger’s Cologne studio with other art enthusiasts. The conversation on the journey home consisted largely of discussions about art and the direction of one’s own collection. Some collected works only by or about women, others only collected works with blood, others had a specific movement or era in mind. But I had nothing like that to show and it suddenly became clear to me that it wasn’t so much me finding the works of art as they were finding me, just like on that rainy Sunday afternoon when the dream city of Pearl overcame all the hurdles and even deprived me of my well-deserved sleep.
Andreas Gfrerer
Impressions
