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Wien: Katharinenhalle Reservespital (reserve hospital) by Max Pollak

Wien: Katharinenhalle Reservespital (reserve hospital) by Max Pollak

Wien: Katharinenhalle Reservespital (reserve hospital)

Max Pollak

Title

Wien: Katharinenhalle Reservespital (reserve hospital)

 
Artist

Max Pollak

  1886 - 1970 (biography)
Year
c. 1918  
Technique
etching and drypoint (preparatory impression with hand-applied detailing) 
Image Size
20 3/4 x 21 1/8" platemark 
Signature
pencil signed (partially erased), lower right 
Edition Size
not stated; presumed under 25 impressions 
Annotations
pencil titled, lower left; red Friedl Pollak collection (FPC) stamp in lower left sheet corner; further indiscernable annotation above title, pencil 
Reference
 
Paper
cream Van Gelder Zonen laid 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
22816 
Price
SOLD
Description

This etching was likely created when Pollak was employed as an artist by the Austrian Army to chronicle World War I. He would base several early etchings on his wartime observations.

The structure was located in Weigl's Dreher Park, Vienna. It was an indoor ampitheater built for the International Music and Theater Exhibition in 1892, and could hold 4,000 occupants. It changed hands several times but was always a place of entertainment and was in service through 1925, when it was demolished.

In this image, Pollak illustrates one of the building's brief but necessary transformations: as Reserve Hospital Number 4, an auxiliary unit for wounded soldiers of World War I in 1918. Hospital beds are arranged, row after row, on the floor that in peaceful times was meant for dining and dancing. Hospital workers watch over them from the upper balcony.