Still Life with Coffee Cups

At first Faistauer wavered between a career as an artist or as an author. The fact that he finally opted for painting owed a great deal to his school friend Albert Paris Gütersloh and a visit to the Vienna Secession’s Impressionism Exhibition in 1903. He passed the entrance examination to the Vienna Academy second time round and was in the same class as Egon Schiele; both artists fought together for common goals. In protest at the conservative teaching methods he founded the Neukunstgruppe (New Art Group) with Schiele, Wiegele and Andersen. In this phase of rebellion his work mainly reflected the spirit of the Secession, at times completely suppressing the key inspiration from his student days – paintings by Paul Cézanne. This shimmering still life is a picture that goes further than Cézanne’s style of painting. It is a continuation, a new creation.