From the 1910s onward, Edward Cucuel's work was characterized by cheerful, carefree outdoor painting, which he initially pursued with his friend and teacher Leo Putz in Hartmannsberg am Chiemsee, where the painters worked side by side every summer for four years. Their central motif are the so-called "boat pictures", in which they show their models exploring the landscape on the lake, in small hidden bays or on the shore. From 1914, Cucuel was based on Ammersee and then on Starnberger See south of Munich, where he owned a villa with extensive lakeside property. There he continued the previously chosen motif: young, elegantly dressed women, casually lingering outdoors, but above all, in dialog with the sparkling, gentle waves of the lake, enjoying their leisure time. With an increasing stylistic independence from Putz, Cucuel captured his motifs with an unbroken fluid and fleeting brushwork in rich, highly luminous tones. The special appeal of Edward Cucuel's paintings lies in the noticeable lightness and nonchalant elegance. The staging of the models blurs the line between pose and unobserved spontaneity, owing to the apparently casual execution, painting appears to be a pleasant summer pastime. He often did not only use the brush, but also applied the paint in broad strokes with the putty knife, which gives his motifs a solid physicality despite the light, pastel colors. In particular, the world of the beautiful, carefree young woman in a summery lake landscape is one of Edward Cucuel's most successful motifs. His pictures from the shore of Lake Starnberg are an expression of a way of life that is also characteristic of a certain social class, which the painter pays homage to in his paintings and which was influenced by late Impressionism. The young lady dressed in summery white, is completely immersed in the magical colors of the shimmering blue-gray lake. Slight reflections of light on her airy dress give the scene the magic that is so characteristic of many of Cucuel's works from this epoch. [KT]