Edmund Calf

Edmund Kalb (born February 2, 1900 in Dornbirn ; † October 20, 1952 there ) was a Vorarlberg painter and draftsman .

Life

Edmund Kalb was born as the son of a decorative painter in Dornbirn at the turn of the century, went to school there and met Alfons Fritz . He became interested in painting at an early age, attended the art academy in Munich , went on several study trips and finally lived a secluded life in Dornbirn. Yet Kalb repeatedly came into conflict with the authorities he hated, which led to arrests and imprisonment. Kalb was convicted in 1943 for disobedience and in 1947 for insulting officials and resisting state authority . He increasingly isolated himself from society and led an outsider life.

Kalb learned and wrote in Esperanto , studied autosuggestion , astronomy and mathematical models of thought, and led an ascetic lifestyle. He limited himself to a few dishes, was committed to a special diet and tried his hand at plant breeding and rice cultivation.

Kalb died at the age of 52 in Dornbirn.

plant

Kalb's domain was portraiture , mainly drawing. Kalb tried to figure out the character of the portrayed people and to capture them. One of his models was his mother; He titled one of these drawings on the back with "Proletariat and personality as outlook, tragedy and demonia and potential value for the personality of creative powers of concentration / demonically realistic confrontation into the gigantic, magical, physical room design possibilities in the portrait of my mother".

As a consequence of increasing internalization and isolation, Kalb dealt with himself more and more or practically exclusively in later years and created an impressive series of over 600 self-portraits , which on a superficial view often hardly differ from one another and yet always new aspects of an unfathomable internalized personality in one Free time of massive external upheavals between monarchy, dictatorship, republic and two world wars.

Appreciation

The Kalbs plant is owned by families, collectors, museums and public institutions. In 1994, in a large-scale campaign by the Kunsthaus Bregenz and the city of Dornbirn, efforts were made to document Kalb's life's work as comprehensively as possible. Private collectors were also called upon via the media to register and have the works cataloged. The result was a 500-page catalog with a preliminary catalog raisonné, which offers a clear, if not complete, overview of Kalb's life's work.

In 2002 a film documentary portrait of Kalb took part in the Viennale : “Awakening from Fate - Homage to Edmund Kalb (1900-1952)” is an 84-minute documentary by Stephan Settele, camera Peter Zach, which the director himself called “Attempt that To draw a portrait of a lifelong individualist and at least posthumously do justice to his extraordinary personality and work ”.

literature

• Edmund Kalb 1900–1952 , ed. by Kunsthaus Bregenz and the city of Dornbirn, essays by Rudolf Sagmeister, Kathleen Sagmeister-Fox

u. a., with a preliminary catalog raisonné, (1994) ISBN 3-85430-213-4

Web links

• Literature by and about Edmund Kalb in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait of the Vorarlberg Chronicle
• Movie review: The standard
• Awakening from fate at Film.at