{"id":1030,"date":"2014-01-24T05:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2014-12-23T16:05:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T16:05:31","slug":"artist-henry-koerner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/01\/24\/artist-henry-koerner\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Henry Koerner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Koerner <\/a>
Koerner in 1964. (Photo credit: Unknown) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Koerner <\/a>
Koerner in his living room in 1983. (Mark Murphy\/Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div>
\"Koerner <\/a>
Koerner with students on the Sixth Street Bridge on Nov. 8, 1977. (Andy Starnes\/Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Koerner's <\/a>
Koerner’s widow Joan with his last painting in 1991. (Andy Starnes\/Post-Gazette) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Henry <\/a>
Henry Koerner It Isn\u2019t the Heat, It\u2019s the Humidity, 1947\u20131948, Oil on Masonite, Purchase: Gift of the Judith Rothschild Foundation <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The Family, 1949, Gouache on illustration board Purchase: Gift of Milton Porter <\/div> <\/div>
\"Oh <\/a>
Oh Fearful Wonder of Man, 1962, Oil on Canvas, The Henry L. Hillman Fund <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Henry <\/a>
Henry Koerner with his wife and daughter Stephanie Beth Koerner in the family\u2019s apartment\/art studio on Murrayhill Ave. ( Photo by Allan C. Shane\/Sun-Telegraph) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Henry Koerner was in his 20s when he fled Vienna in 1938 to escape the Nazis, who seized control of Austria.<\/p>\n

The artist\u2019s memories of that era were vivid partly because he saw Nazi Luftwaffe chief, Hermann G\u00f6ring, coming into Vienna with Adolf Hitler. Years later, while working as a court artist at the Nuremberg trials, Koerner sketched Goring and Rudolf Hess.<\/p>\n

After leaving his native Austria, he eventually landed in New York City. By 1939, he was employed as a graphic artist in Manhattan, designing book covers for mysteries and detective stories. In the 1940s, he received widespread recognition for poster designs. The U.S. Army drafted him in 1943 and he served in Washington, D.C. and London.<\/p>\n

After the war, LIFE magazine called a 1947 exhibition of Koerner\u2019s artwork in Berlin \u201cthe most important paintings to come out of the war.\u201d One of the pictures, titled \u201cMy Parents,\u201d brought him international acclaim. Mr. Koerner\u2019s parents and his brother died in Nazi-run concentration camps.<\/p>\n

In 1952, Koerner arrived in Pittsburgh and became an artist in residence at the Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University. A year later, he married Joan Frasher. They met while he was painting a series of portraits showing students playing musical instruments.<\/p>\n

Intelligent, imaginative and uncompromising, Koerner loved the Pittsburgh landscape and painted it often. He carried his easels and paints on his bicycle. His artistic influences were Paul Cezanne and Peter Breughel. While he said that he saw his work as a bridge between the baroque and the surreal, he was an exemplar of magic realism, a form of fantasy with elements of the real and surreal.<\/p>\n

From 1955 to 1967, he painted 41 covers for Time magazine. The celebrities who sat for him included Nelson and David Rockefeller, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert, opera singers Maria Callas and Leontyne Price, actress Julie Harris and singer Barbra Streisand.<\/p>\n

In 1962, he began creating multi-panel paintings. In 1983, he had a one-man retrospective at Carnegie Museum of Art. A year later, while mountain climbing in Austria, he fell 30 feet and managed to grab a ledge. His son, Joseph, ran two hours to get help and his father was rescued by a helicopter.<\/p>\n

The artist rented an apartment in Vienna nearly every summer and painted. He was bicycling near that city during the summer of 1991 when he was struck by a car. He died a month later at age 75.<\/p>\n

One of Koerner\u2019s paintings, \u201cIt Isn\u2019t the Heat, It\u2019s the Humidity,\u201d is on view at Carnegie Museum of Art. It\u2019s among the artworks that were acquired during past Carnegie Internationals. Many of those paintings were reinstalled for the current Carnegie International, which remains on view through March 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Henry Koerner was in his 20s when he fled Vienna in 1938 to escape the Nazis, who seized control of Austria.<\/p>\n

Look at the picturesArtist Henry Koerner<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1066],"tags":[1252,1194,1263,994,1010],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/tumblr_mzu4bwkwTm1rr5swxo4_1280.jpg?fit=1008%2C735&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/10\/04\/evolution-of-the-andy-warhol-museum\/","url_meta":{"origin":1030,"position":0},"title":"Evolution of the Andy Warhol Museum","date":"October 4, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"The Andy Warhol Museum, which opened in 1994, is located in a distinctive building that once served as a warehouse for oil well, mill and mine supplies.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/tumblr_mu3olxGqZU1rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=960%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2281,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2012\/11\/16\/photographer-stewart-love-atop-the-gulf-building\/","url_meta":{"origin":1030,"position":1},"title":"Photographer Stewart Love atop the Gulf Building","date":"November 16, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"He often climbed some of the area\u2019s tallest structures to make pictures.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/tumblr_mdjxzuOpCI1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1158%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1356,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/09\/27\/the-strip-districts-character-remains\/","url_meta":{"origin":1030,"position":2},"title":"The Strip District\u2019s character remains","date":"September 27, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"One place that remains virtually unchanged in Pittsburgh is the Strip District.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/tumblr_mtrcf9qTFj1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C714&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":557,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/06\/13\/the-hill-districts-hill-house\/","url_meta":{"origin":1030,"position":3},"title":"The Hill District’s Hill House","date":"June 13, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Pittsburgh\u2019s Hill District was once home to three settlement houses. In 1964, they became one.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/tumblr_n6r7a6W0He1rr5swxo8_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C719&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1199,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2013\/11\/20\/architect-henry-hornbostel\/","url_meta":{"origin":1030,"position":4},"title":"Architect Henry Hornbostel","date":"November 20, 2013","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Henry Hornbostel was a gifted architect and one of Pittsburgh\u2019s most flamboyant figures.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/tumblr_mwip0por8G1rr5swxo2_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C757&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":567,"url":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/2014\/06\/11\/1967-first-penguins-arrive-in-pittsburgh\/","url_meta":{"origin":1030,"position":5},"title":"1967: First penguins arrive in Pittsburgh","date":"June 11, 2014","format":"gallery","excerpt":"Their new home was not Civic Arena, and in fact, they were not even hockey players.","rel":"","context":"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/tumblr_n70addJ9uu1rr5swxo1_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C804&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4671,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions\/4671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/thedigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}