Otto Hettner’s Picknick from 1906

A First Contextualization and the History of the Reception of a Major Work

Abstract

Born in Dresden, Otto Hettner (1875–1931) was a painter and graphic artist of the early Modernist period who has long been largely overlooked by researchers. Hettner lived and worked in various locations in Germany and abroad, taught as a professor in Dresden, and acted as an intermediary in the sale of artworks (for artists including Edvard Munch). His now largely unknown work, which can only be found in a few public collections, is highly varied in terms of both style and content; it emerged around 1900 in an artistic arena shaped by Impressionism, Symbolism, Expressionism, and monumental painting. Upon his death, Hettner left an oeuvre of around 4,300 works, but confiscation and war reduced this number to the approximately 60 paintings that remain today. These include Picknick [Picnic], which Hettner painted in Fiesole near Florence in 1906. It was one of 58 works by the artist that could be seen at the autumn exhibition of the Hagenbund in Vienna in 1910, and it was acquired for the city’s Modern Gallery in 1911. This essay describes, for the first time, the context in which the work was produced, offers insight into the working methods of the artist during this very important phase of his career, and, with the help of selected reviews, traces the enormous success that he enjoyed in Vienna in 1910.