further reflections by Caroline Boyce, after March 2025 National Historic Place Designation of The Koerner House
March 9, 2025 was a beautiful, sunny day. The view from 1055 South Negley Avenue brought to life what attracted artist Henry Koerner (1915-1991,born Heinrich Sieghard Korner) to Squirrel Hill and Pittsburgh, and compelled him to build the house on this site. I stood outside about noontime that day taking in the hills, the views across Shadyside, Bloomfield, East Liberty and Highland Park. The sun sparkled on the Motor Square Garden Dome and the Garfield Water Tower. The shadows were deep in the backyards of the houses on Murray Hill and South Negley Avenues. These are all things Koerner saw and painted.
I felt Koerner’s presence and thought about his life, so relevant today, as a refugee from war coming to this country. In 1938, he escaped the Nazi annexation of Austria and became a leader in the Magic Realism movement inspired by the impact of the war on his family and his home country. In its May 10, 1948 issue Life magazine recognized that “the best paintings to-date that have come out of the war were done by Henry Koerner…No new artist in years has been accorded the sudden, unanimous praise received by Koerner”. His love affair with Time began with the April 28, 1947 review of Koerner’s solo exhibition in Berlin—the first in Berlin after the war. It blossomed in a February 21, 1949 article: “In less than two years, Henry Koerner had become one of the most important and controversial figures in US art.” In the years that followed, he painted 46 covers for Time magazine, and settled in Pittsburgh to start a family and embark on a new style of painting.
For me, March 9th was the culmination of four years of extensive research and writing with the installation of the plaque recognizing the listing of the property in the National Register of Historic Places. Three years earlier the Historic Landmark plaque from Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation was installed. It felt wonderfully appropriate that the National Register plaque was installed by a man whose story bears some similarity to Henry Koerner’s. Roman Skobelev, a professional photographer and artist left his practice and studio in Russia two years ago to come to Pittsburgh to start a new life. I think he felt Koerner’s presence that day, as well.
The peculiar house at 1055 South Negley was and is “The House that Time Built. Joan Koerner, Henry’s wife, claimed that his last two Time covers made the house possible.[1] Featured on those covers were Rudolph Peterson, chairman of Bank of America (December 30, 1966) and Senator Edward Brook, the first African American to be elected to the US Senate (February 17, 1967). The house is recognized as an excellent example of an “artist’s house”. It is a place where the making and display of art intersects with home, and which expresses the unique personality of the artist. The Koerner House is one of Pittsburgh’s most important and recognizable artist’s houses. It is a place that was inhabited, experienced and shared with both the family and the outside world.
As I moved through the house that day, I imagined Henry with his architect friend, Richard Righter, sitting down to develop the concept of the house. On the outside, it evokes what Henry loved about residential structures in Vienna, including the used brick, the Juliette balconies and the arched doorway. The open, loft-like interior was designed like the “White Cube” art galleries of the time, with 10-foot ceilings, hard wood floors, state-of-the-art recessed lights and an art hanging system that allowed him to display his work without damaging the walls.
I walked through the house imagining Henry Koerner there with Joan, and children Stephanie and Joseph. This was the place that was his home, his gallery and a place of work. I saw him sitting in his Thonet rocking chair in the living room and then standing on the imposing open staircase leading to the third floor to survey his art on the walls. I could smell the cake Joanie was baking. I could hear Koerner’s colorful personality leading a group of students in a class on the first floor. That space was filled with a rainbow of light from the sun streaming through the front door stained glass window. The sound of someone playing the piano, which Koerner painted, became the soundtrack to my imaginings. And then, I saw him outside in the courtyard, shirtless and barefoot. He was holding up a painting he had just completed, smiling gleefully surrounded by the putti he also purchased with proceeds from his Time magazine covers.
The house is my home now, but it will always be the Koerner House and I will always feel the presence of one of Pittsburgh’s most important and prolific artists. I hope he knows that the nation can now recognize the importance of the place he called home.
1 Colucci, Rosa. “Buying Here: Squirrel Hill”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 7, 2011
Squirrel Hill Historical Society 