Augustin Maria Kurtz-Gallenstein

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Augustin Maria Kurtz-Gallenstein (born August 1, 1856 in St. Gallen , Styria , † July 5, 1916 in Admont ) was an Austrian painter .

Life

The artist was born in the Upper Styrian market in Sankt Gallen, the second of 11 children of the merchants Heinrich and Johanna Kurtz. The father was the mayor of St. Gallen and, among other things, the founder of the local savings bank. The painter's distant ancestors came from Leipzig and Aachen and were both artistic and literary.

Portrait of a woman

In his early years, two people in particular were involved in Augustin M. Kurtz's artistic career: the Viennese painter Holzinger, who stayed in St. Gallen in the summer of 1876 and who he often watched his work; as well as the Lieutenancy Adviser von Stähling, who saw the pictures of "Gustl" on the occasion of a visit and formally urged the parents to give their son an artistic education, who initially worked in his father's business. From 1878 he attended the drawing academy in Graz . From October 20, 1880 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and earned a good reputation as a landscape and portrait painter . He attended the drawing school with Professor Alois Gabl (born 1845 in Wies in Tirol , genre and portrait painter, died 1893 in Munich), the painting school with Professor Ludwig von Löfftz and, in 1883, the composition school with Professor Wilhelm von Diez . He added the suffix -Gallenstein in memory of the Gallenstein Castle in his homeland and to distinguish it from his brother Arthur Kurtz , who also studied painting in Munich from 1884 .

After successful exhibitions and some major study trips abroad, Kurtz-Gallenstein settled permanently in Admont from November 1900 . He now devoted his artistic activity to his monastery - allegedly an unhappy love for a noblewoman was the cause of his retreat into monastery life. According to family tradition, a picture with a cemetery scene that is owned by the family shows that noble lady who was about to retreat to the monastery led monastic life. The gloomy mood of the depiction is an indication of the desperate state of mind of the artist. As a lay brother in monastic seclusion, he worked there as a court painter , designed and renewed numerous frescoes in Admont Abbey and the surrounding area . Many of his oil paintings, sketches and writings were also kept and exhibited in Admont and were preserved for posterity. In the last few years of his life he suffered greatly from clouding of his eyesight after an injury to his left eye. With the disappearance of his eyesight, his sense of color gradually died out and his artistic work came to an end. After a severe pleurisy, Kurtz-Gallenstein died in Admont on July 5, 1916.

From November 2006 to August 2007 some of the artist's works were shown in the Neue Galerie Graz , among others together with paintings by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller . The title of the exhibition was On the Nature of Man, Genre Painting. Furthermore, works by him were shown in the exhibition “Aufbruch in die Moderne” from November 2014 to February 2015 in the Neue Galerie Graz.

Augustin Kurtz-Gallenstein was the brother of Arthur Kurtz , who was primarily known as a portrait painter. His brother Oskar Kurtz , born in 1863, died in 1927, was the inventor of a string orchestrion, a piano that played several string instruments while playing. He also worked on building a flying machine.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Kurtz-Gallenstein, Augustin Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Sankt Gallen (Styria)
DATE OF DEATH July 5, 1916
Place of death Admont