Abstract of the Lecture in English:

US Wartime Propaganda and Yet ‘Something Deeply Viennese’.Henry Koerner’s Transformative Years as World War II Poster Artist

The Viennese born graphic designer Heinrich Sieghart Körner, who in his American exile became known as Henry Koerner, was one of the most successful poster artists of the US Office of War Information in World War II and a subtle portraitist of German perpetrators at the Nuremberg trials. Under the very special and challenging conditions of the tumultuous wartime years, ranging from the Nazi take-over of Austria in 1938 to 1946, the work of this Jewish refugee – who lost his parents and his brother in the Holocaust – evolved gradually into „art“ and after the war his career as mainly Pittsburgh-based “master of magic realism” was rocketing. Yet, despite having become a full-fledged “American”, for all his life his work remained essentially „something deeply Viennese“ (Joseph Koerner). In his lecture Florian Traussnig will shed light on the transformative and powerful effect of Koerner’s exile and wartime experience and he will examine how this artist opened his unique – and partially morbid and uncanny – “kulturellen Rucksack” (cultural backpack) from Austria and fused the contents therein with American art and culture.

18. September, 21 Uhr (mitteleuropäische Zeit)
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA