This painting is incredible live, really unbelievable.
I'd never heard of Henry Koerner. The back story is this: He was born in 1915 to Jewish parents and after the union of Germany and Austria under the Nazi government, he was able to flee to Italy in 1939, leaving his parents behind. Sponsored by a great uncle, he managed to emigrate to the United States, where in 1943, he enlisted in the American army, and served in London in the Office of War Information. He was enlisted to do portrayals of the captured Nazi war criminals, and returned to Vienna, where he learned that is whole family had been murdered in the Holocaust.
His first exhibition was in Germany in 1947, the first retrospective of an American artist post war.
Some of this is covered in the notes beside the painting.
He went on to paint many of the portraits on the cover of Time Magazine. His son is a major art critic at Harvard University.
Here's a brief Biography of Koerner, from which I took my remarks above: Caldwell Gallery Henry Koerner Biography
My son, the art student, has been trying to get me to go to the Whitney for a long time, so my whole family went yesterday.
We took the train into the city, walked down tenth avenue and toured the galleries that were open - many were closed.
Finally we approached the Whitney and as it was bitter cold, and my son had no trouble convincing us to go in.
It's a great museum; I can't believe I never went to it over all these years.
I would say for all the great art in the museum, this was this painting where my family lingered the longest. I went back by myself several times to it. The details cannot really be captured in an internet post. It's a remarkable work, especially in context of his life.
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