Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1944.

German School, Darmstadt.

Erich Colm-Bialla was born in 1891 in Bialla East Prussia, then Germany. (He added the name of the town to his birth name of Colm).

A painter of landscapes, still lives, garden scenes, interiors, portraits and of the female nude figure, he went to Berlin in 1904 and studied at the "Kunstgewerbeschule".  In 1911/12 he continued his studies at the Academy of Arts in Munich with Angelo Jank, and back in Berlin in 1913 with Lovis Corinth.

He served in WWI, was captured by the French and returned in 1920 to Germany, settling in Alsbach, near Darmstadt.  He became a member of the artist association in Darmstadt but was excluded in March 1933 because of being Jewish.  He participated in exhibitions in 1930 and 1931.