Teresa Feoderovna Ries (30 January 1874,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

– 16 July 1956,

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) was a Russian-born Austrian sculptor and painter. The year of her birth has also been given as 1866 and 1877.

Life and work

Teresa Ries was born in Russia to a Jewish family. She attended the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. She was expelled for showing disrespect toward a professor in one of her classes. She moved to Vienna at the age of 21, where her first exhibition at the Vienna Künstlerhaus included ''Witch'', a sculpture of a nude woman clipping her toenails. This piece caught the attention of Kaiser Franz Joseph I, and she soon became highly celebrated throughout Vienna. The exhibition was also attended by

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's p ...

, an active member of the Vienna Secession movement, who asked her to exhibit with them. She sought out Edmund Hellmer as a mentor; at first he refused, saying that "it was pointless to teach women since they married anyway". Hellmer eventually relented and helped her to exhibit her work and to gain commissions. In 1900 Ries exhibited at the Paris

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and the 1911 World's Fair in

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on the invitation of both Russia and Austria. Prince Aloys of Liechtenstein offered her the use of a suite of rooms beside his own picture gallery as a studio. Working in stone, marble, plaster, and bronze, Ries produced both private and public works during her career. Some of her well-known nude sculptures are ''Sleepwaker'' (pre-1894), ''Lucifer'' (c. 1897), and ''Death'' (1898). She produced sculptures and busts for public spaces; her ''Bust of Jaromir Mundy'' (1897) is mounted on the outside of the Vienna Fireman's Association building. She is perhaps best known for photographing and creating a bust of

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

during the time he resided in Vienna. According to art critic Karl Kraus, "her exhibitions received too much publicity". Ries published her memoir, ''Die Sprache des Steines'' (The Language of Stone) in 1928. In 1938 she was evicted from her gallery and studio space due to the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

policy of Aryanization. She continued to work in Vienna until 1942 and then immigrated to

, Switzerland.

Personal life

Ries married, lost a child, and divorced while still a teenager in Moscow.

Legacy

Her work was included in the 2019 exhibition ''City Of Women: Female artists in Vienna from 1900 to 1938'' at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.

References

Sources

* * Anka Leśniak
''Teresa Feodorowna Ries and The Witch''
Art and Documentation, 21, 2019, pp. 143–158 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ries, Teresa Feoderovna 1874 births 1956 deaths Artists from Moscow People from Moscow Governorate Russian Jews Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Austria-Hungary Austrian people of Russian-Jewish descent Russian women painters 20th-century Austrian painters Members of the Vienna Secession Jewish women painters Jewish painters Jewish women sculptors Austrian women sculptors 20th-century Austrian women artists Artists from Vienna Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture alumni