UNTITLED (NO. 659)

Over the course of his adult life, Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) created a body of work in three disparate modes: boudoir-style photographs of his wife, Marie, ceramic and bone sculptures, and otherworldly, abstracted oil paintings, all of which he displayed and arranged in his Milwaukee home. The present lot, a stellar painting, includes the sinuous details and colorful elements present in his best oil works, and the oscillation between his patterned abstraction and the anthropomorphic elements adds layers of intrigue to the piece. Von Bruencheinhein always considered himself an artist, and he saw his long-term job at a bakery only as a source of income and not as his true vocation.

The hand-etched metal plaque Eugene hung in the kitchen of the Von Bruenchenhein home best describes his passions:
Eugene Von Bruenchenhein
Free Lance Artist
Poet and Sculptor
inovator [sic]
Arrow maker and Plant man
Bone artifacts constructor
Photographer and Architect
Philosopher