Henry Koerner (1915-1991)
Artist Exhibit
Henry Koerner (1915 - 1991) - My parents II. Oil on Masonite. 63.5 x 72.2 cm. 1946. Courtesy of Curtis Galleries, Minneapolis, MN.
Artist's Statement
"I have seen enough of Vienna. Now I know what I must do. I must go to Am Tabor and be told that my mother and father are murdered. I will be told all the details. On the corner a grocery store was open--the only store spared on the whole street. Frau Busch stood at the door. It was she who told me what I had known all the time. Her voice was unmoved. It had an undertone of satisfaction, but tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. A puff of wind blew through the broken building. I looked up to the room in which I was born. I loved and belonged to the empty space behind the torn curtain."
"...And so I painted this scene in the Wienerwald. I helped my parents to walk once more in their beloved Vienna Woods, and I hung the locket with its photo of their children on a tree where their ways departed."
- Henry Koerner