Lot 439: Hans Schwarz, Austrian 1922-2003 Hans Schwarz,

Hans Schwarz, Austrian 1922-2003 Hans Schwarz, painter and sculptor: born Vienna 29 December 1922; married 1943 Lena Jones (two sons); died London 28 May 2003. Hans Schwarz, a Central European Jew, was exiled from Austria to Britain with the rise of Hitler and the onset of the Second World War. His mother died when he was 12, and father perished in Auschwitz. He arrived in Britain at the age of 16 as a refugee, but later went to Birmingham College of Art, which led to his employment in a commercial art studio and later as a freelance illustrator. However it was not until his forties when he devoted all his time to his true passion of being a painter and sculptor. He took his inspiration from artists like Schiele and Kokoschka, the German Expressionists, and from French painters such as Bonnard. He had a strong solid style combined with a vivid use of colour. He was a member of the Royal Watercolour Society, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the New English Art Club, the Contemporary Portrait Society, the Chelsea Art Society and the Hampstead Artists Council. He worked in every medium covering many subjects, but some of his most memorable pictures were his portraits, notably in 1984 of the trade union leaders Tom Jackson, Sid Weighell and Joe Gormley, which now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Anton Emanuel Peschka, Austrian 1885-1940- "Erdo Dulo, Hungary"; oil on panel, signed and dated 1925, bears pencil inscription to verso, in an ebonised frame, 9.7x18.5cm Provenance: From the Estate of the late Hans Schwarz, Austrian 1922-2003 Gifted from the artist to Hans Schwarz. Note: Anton Peschka was very good friends with the Austrian artist Egon Schiele.