Carl Moll Austrian Art Nouveau artist Date of Birth: 23.04.1861 Country: Austria

Biography of Karl Moll

Karl Moll was an Austrian artist of the Jugendstil era. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts from 1880 to 1881 under Christian Gripenkerl, and later became a student and assistant to landscape artist Emil Jakob Schindler. After Schindler's death in 1892, Moll married his widow and became a stepfather to his daughter, Alma.

In 1897, Moll became one of the co-founders of the Vienna Secession. The Secessionists organized exhibitions of contemporary art in Vienna. In 1903, Moll initiated the founding of the "Modern Gallery" in Vienna, which is now known as the Austrian Gallery Belvedere. As the director of the gallery, Moll promoted the work of Gustav Klimt and organized exhibitions featuring artists from other countries. It was thanks to Moll that Vienna first saw the works of Vincent van Gogh.

In the 1930s, Moll revealed himself as a convinced National Socialist. After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Moll's stepdaughter, Alma, was forced to flee Austria with her Jewish husband, Franz Werfel. A few days later, Moll took five paintings from the Belvedere Gallery, which Alma had entrusted to his care on behalf of her daughter, Maria Eberstaller. The most valuable of these paintings, Edward Munch's "Summer Night on the Beach", was later sold by Moll to the gallery. Following a lengthy legal dispute, this painting was returned to Alma's rightful heir, Marina Moll, on May 9, 2007, in accordance with Austrian restitution laws.

In 1945, when Soviet forces entered Vienna, Karl Moll, along with his daughter and her husband, committed suicide at their villa. He is buried at the Grinzing Cemetery in Vienna. Moll gained recognition for his large-format color lithographs and woodcuts. The style of his later landscapes evolved from the flat painting characteristic of the Secessionists to a greater sense of spatiality, and in his later years, Moll became increasingly associated with Expressionism.