August Valentin

August Valentin

August Valentin (born February 8, 1858 in Abtei (South Tyrol) ; † December 24, 1940 in Brixen ; also Augustin Valentin ) was a sculptor ( wood carver , altar builder) who ran a successful workshop in Bressanone from 1890 to 1909 He furnished church buildings in his home region of South Tyrol , but also in North and East Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein and Graubünden with works of art.

Life

August Valentin received his artistic training in what was then the stronghold of wood carving in Val Gardena , where the academic sculptor Ferdinand Demetz founded his "Technical School (for Church Art) Ortisei " in 1873 . He then settled down as a freelance sculptor in Brixen and built up a busy art workshop from simple beginnings. In 1888 - at the age of 30 - he married the Brixen spice and haberdashery dealer Agnes Vinatzer from the well-known Val Gardena wood carving dynasty Vinazer .

In his expanding company, Valentin trained other capable employees - including Alois and Johann Matthias Peskoller - as sculptors and barrel painters . Stylistically, the altars, altar figures and relief representations were assigned to the historicism of the 19th century, which replaced classicism with neo-gothic and neo-renaissance around 1830 and changed to neo-baroque from around 1885 .

August Valentin was a driving force behind the establishment of the first carpenter's cooperative in Brixen, founded in 1900 .

When the previously flourishing business became more and more difficult due to the high level of competition, he opened the hotel / café “Central” in 1903 and in the second phase of his life devoted himself more and more to his new career as a hotelier and innkeeper . In the period up to the First World War, however, Valentin continued to work as a sculptor.

In the war year 1915 he was a platoon leader for the Standschützen for 9 months .

Honors

August Valentin showed his works of art at many exhibitions and won awards, so

• In 1890, 1891 and 1892 in Graz , Linz , Temesvar and Wels a silver medal each,
• 1893 in Vienna the first State Prize of the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Commerce ,
• 1896 in Paris the gold medal at the exhibition for trade and industry,
• In 1896 in Innsbruck at the International Exhibition the highest award, the gold medal with the gold crown.

In 1903 Archduchess Maria Josefa gave him a gold pin with her monogram MJ as a thank you for a lesson in sculpture that Valentin had given her and her son Archduke Karl , who later became Emperor of Austria.

Works

Tyrol

• 2nd half of the 19th century: Altar in neo-Renaissance forms in the Chapel of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Zotten in St. Veit in Defereggen
• 1890: Pulpit and altars of the parish church of St. Pankraz
• 1891: with the carpenter Clemens Raffeiner: high altar, side altars, pulpit with relief figures in the Rupert Church in Kelchsau in Hopfgarten im Brixental
• 1893: Neo-Gothic relief group Handing over the keys to Peter on the baroque high altar around 1740 in the Petruskirche in Breitenbach am Inn
• 1894: High altar in the parish church of St. Pankraz
• 1893: Altar construction with the statues of St. Wolfgang and St. Ulrich and the frame of the station boards in the church of St. Wolfgang in Geiselsberg (fraction of Olang in Pustertal) near Enneberg .
• 1894: Antony relief in the chapel in the Franciscan monastery of San Candido
• 1896: Neo-Romanesque altars and figures in the Martinskirche in Innervillgraten
• 1900 and 1902–1903: wooden sculptures of the neo-Romanesque high altar and the side altars (Mary and Joseph) of the parish church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Innichen (South Tyrol)

Reliefs of the stations of the cross in the Josefskirche in Kennelbach

Vorarlberg

• 1890/91: St. Antonius Abbot and St. Wendelin with a Gothic base and canopy in the chapel of St. Ulrich in Möggers
• 1893/94: high altar and side altars in the Nikolauskirche in Egg
• around 1900: Reliefs of the stations of the cross in the Michaelskirche in Gaschurn
• 1901: Reliefs of the stations of the cross in the Sulpitius church in Frastanz
• 1901: Left and right side altars in the Silbertal parish church
• 1906: Reliefs of the stations of the cross in the Josefskirche in Kennelbach
• 1909: High altar in the Silbertal parish church
• Left and right side altars with figures in the Meschacher Wolfgangskirche in Götzis
• Left and right side altars with figures in the St. John the Baptist Church in Höchst

Grisons

• 1903/1904: Altars, pulpit, stations of the cross in the parish church Herz Jesu ( Falera , Graubünden)

Liechtenstein

• 1895 (altar consecration): altars and station boards in the parish church of St. Martin Eschen (Liechtenstein)

literature

• Eduard Scheiber: August Valentin, the master of the pilgrim madonna statute in Brixen. In: Lieb-Frauen-Bote. 48, 1996, No. 6, pp. 13-16.
• Walter Fehle: The sculptor August Valentin. In: Rheticus. 22, 2000, No. 1, pp. 51-57.
• Ursus Brunold: On the furnishing of Catholic churches in Graubünden 1850-1930. Poeschel IV Art Guide 1, p. 33.
• Josef Weingartner: The art monuments of South Tyrol. Volume 4, p. 79 (altar and pulpit in XX by Augustin Valentin around 1890) and 82 (neo-Romanesque high altar in YY with sculptures St. Helena, Josef and Aloysius by August Valentin 1894).
• Erich Egg: The Tyrolean lowlands. Verlag St. Peter, 1971 p. 86 (restricted view, books.google.de in place of an altarpiece a neo-Gothic relief of the handover of the keys to Petrus von Augustin Valentin 1893) and page 117 (relief of St. Maria Rupert and Vigil in the Church of St. Rupert by Augustin Valentin)
• Heinrich Hammer: Die Kunstdenkmäler Österreichs - Tirol , Verlag Anton Schroll, Vienna 1960, p. 97 (restricted view, books.google.de , sculptures by Augustin Valentin 1891).

Web links

Commons : August Valentin  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Bündner building directory denkmalpflege.gr.ch (PDF; 2.0 MB) about the parish church Herz Jesu in Falera (Graubünden)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Eduard Scheiber: August Valentin, the master of the pilgrim madonna statute in Brixen.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Dehio Tirol 1980 , list of artists
3. ↑ Valentin, August . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 34 : Urliens – Vzal . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1940, p. 63 .
4. ↑ Weblink Sankt Pankraz (Ultental), p. 2 ( Memento of the original dated December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 158 kB) 
5. ↑ Weblink Sankt Pankraz (Ultental), p. 3 ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 158 kB) 
6. ↑ Augustin Valentin and Church of St. Wolfgang in Geiselsberg on the Olang website  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Weblink of the municipality of Franzensfeste (South Tyrol) p. 1 ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 75 kB). 
8. ^ Report of the Federal Monuments Office 2010 on Ulrich's Chapel in Möggers .
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Dehio Vorarlberg 1983 , list of artists
10. ↑ Bündner building directory denkmalpflege.gr.ch (PDF; 2.0 MB).
11. ↑ Local council protocol , Eschen (Liechtenstein) of October 26, 2011, monument protection for the parish church of St. Martin, p. 322 in the protocol, p. 6 (PDF; 117 kB).