Art Deco portrait of a young woman was executed in 1923 , signed with monogram D.K. and was attributed to the hand of Austrian ceramicist, artisan ( in German: Kunstgewerbler) and painter Dina Kuhn, actually Berhardine Kuhn ( 1891 Vienna - 1963 Schlierbach).

She worked for the Wiener Werkstätte and Waechtersbacher Keramik. Her drawing are extremely rare on market.

After completing her school education, she began eight years of study at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna in 1912. Her teachers included, among others: the architect and designer Josef Hoffmann, the painter and designer Franz Čižek, the painter and graphic artist Kolo Moser, the architect Oskar Strnad and the ceramist Michael Powolny. During her training, Dina Kuhn designed ceramics for the Wiener Werkstätte, which she joined as a member in 1917. By 1922 she had created around 100 designs for ceramic figures, wallpaper and fabric patterns for the artist community. She made numerous ceramic wall reliefs for Oskar Strnad's noble room of the Austrian Workshops at the German Trade Show in Munich in 1922.

In 1923 she founded her own ceramic studio, the Dina Kuhn Art Ceramic Workshop, together with her brother and Emanuel Iskra. She designed ceramic fireplace cladding, tiles, stoves, lamps and vases and worked closely with the Iska stove factory on their execution. In the mid-1920s, Dina Kuhn also designed ceramic objects for the Friedrich Goldscheider factory, the Augarten porcelain factory and for the Bimini glass factory, founded in 1923.

In 1925, she was awarded a silver medal for her designs at the Paris World Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Modern Arts. In 1926, the Bimini company decided to expand its production to include decorative ceramics. They set up a ceramics studio in Neu Titschein near Ostrau, whose artistic direction was taken over by Dina Kuhn until 1937. The National Socialists' repression against Jewish entrepreneurs forced the owners of the Bimini company, August and Josef Berger and Fritz Lampl, to emigrate. Dina Kuhn left Neu Titschein and in 1937 made her first contacts with the Waechtersbach ceramics factory, where she had worked as a decorator and modeler since 1938. In August 1940 she finally moved to Schlierbach. Some designs from the Viennese period were later also carried out in Waechtersbach.

After the Second World War, Dina Kuhn retired from professional life. She died on May 28, 1963 in Schlierbach.

Dina Kuhn was a member of the Association of Female Artists in Austria and of Viennese women's art.

Provenance: Viennese private estate ( purchase invoice of Dorotheum of 2007 attached to the work).

Sources: Wikipedia (in German), Art price date bank .

Inscription: signed with monogram D.K., lower right, backside pencil inscriptions with the artis's name and inventory numer 9.

Technique: drawing, oil pastel on paper.

Measurements: only image w. x h. ( 34 x 31 cm); matted and  framed  w.x h. ( 55 x 52 cm).

Condition: perfect condition.