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Adolf Wiesner (Czech, 1871-1942) - Etching, 1919. Signed and dated. 18x24cm. Foxing. Adolf Wiesner was born in Prague into a Jewish family. His father, Theodor Wiesner, was a cattle dealer. He studied at the Prague Academy of Painting with Professor Maximilian Pirner. Then he went to study in Dresden, where he trained with Prof. Laona Pohla. After Dresden, he went to the Academy of Painting in Munich, where he attended lectures by Prof. Otto Saitze . In 1893 he returned to Prague and joined Prof. Vojtech Hynajs, who was then beginning his teaching at the Prague Academy. In 1896 he graduated. He belonged to the group of artists who founded the Association of Fine Artists Manes and the magazine of Czech modernism - Free Directions. He drew an allegorical figure of a young man for the cover of the first issue of Free Directions. In 1898 he exhibited at the first memorable exhibitions of the Manes association in Topic's salon. He was a painter of figural compositions and portraits, but the most popular were his melancholic moody landscapes and genres. Adolf Wiesner was also a member of Sokol, in which he was active as a trainer throughout his youth. From 1900 to 1910 he lived mainly in Paris, where he came into contact with A. Mucha and other Czech artists. He regularly exhibited his paintings in the Salon of French Artists. In Paris, he also met his future wife Helena Brandejsova (1877-1975), daughter of the art patron Alexander Brandejs. He married around 1903 and in 1904 their son Rene was born. After returning to Prague, Wiesner became one of Prague's leading portrait painters. He portrayed famous personalities such as sculptor Stanislav Suchard, painter Alfons Mucha, writer Ruzena Jesenska, Emil Kolben. In 1916 , together with his wife Helena, he organized an exhibition in the Rubesov Gallery in Prague. He most often portrayed his own wife and other members of the Brandejs family. His clientele was mostly Prague Jewish society and this is also the reason why so few of his portraits have survived. After the occupation in 1939, Adolf and Helena Wiesner remained in Prague. In 1942, both were deported to the Terezin ghetto. Three months after his arrival, Adolf Wiesner died on October 10, 1942, of total exhaustion at the age of 72.