Biography
Artur Nikodem was born on the 6^th of February 1870 in Trient and died on the 10^th of February 1940 in Innsbruck. From 1885 to 1888 he went to the Oberrealschule/secondary school in Innsbruck and finished with Matura/A-levels. Afterwards he studied at the Academy for arts in Munich, then in Mailand and Florence; 1889 and 1890 he joined the Austrian navy, sailing the Mediterranean Seas; 1891 he stayed in Paris; he was deeply impressed by Manet and Cezanne. He worked for the Austrian civil service as post-office clerk; 1907 he was transferred to Innsbruck; 1915 call-up order for war service as telegraph officer; 1916 to 1918 stationing at the k.k. troop headquarters in Turkey. From 1920 on he worked as free-lance artist. 1937 he was outlawed in National Socialistic Germany. The Nikodem collection in Nuremberg was partially destroyed.

FRAU MIT GITARRE NR. 100 Öl		FRAUENBILDNIS NR. 101 56X59 Öl		KIRCHGANG NR. 102 46x34 Öl

Extract form the newspaper " Salzburger Nachrichten "

Artur Nikodem, the Austrian born in Trient, stood in the Tirol for that understanding of arts which wanted to free the painting from the outside world, its objects and situations and which wanted to give sovereignity to the picture as a creation of its own. It was this understanding of arts which not long before in the West gave rise to the renewal of our century`s art. The artist dedicated himself to the colour and its magic. His world was the brilliance of colour, in a limited frame-work as expressive power for human existence and experience. His paintings are of inward greatness. It is expressed by big simple shapes and before all by the powerful unbroken tone of his colours in great and elementary harmony as reigning element. His understanding of art was neither historical nor common; he tried to express something that was lying beyond the ordinary, the subtle harmony of things in landscapes, in mountains, in flowers and in human beings, the harmony which exists without any human action and unites people with their world in a mysterious way. Exhibitions of his paintings in Gelsenkirchen, Nuremberg, Vienna and Budapest made him famous over the borders of his home country in the end of the Twenties. His works which often remind of his contemporaries` creations, reveal his effort for style and expression, his struggle with colour and shape which especially in those last years of the National Socialist era when the arts suffered from severe restrictions, broke with conventions and reached a state of perfomance which one could say belongs to the „absolute painting“.