Fedor Flinzer

Fedor Alexis Flinzer (born April 4, 1832 in Reichenbach im Vogtland , † June 14, 1911 in Leipzig ) was a German author , educator and one of the most important illustrators of the early years , who was known as "Saxon Cat Raffael ".

Fedor Alexis Flinzer

Detail from King Nobel (Breslau 1886)

Beginnings

Flinzer attended the art academy in Dresden from 1849 and was trained there by Ludwig Richter and Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld , among others . From 1859 he held a position as a drawing teacher at the secondary school in Chemnitz , where he was also one of the founders of the Kunsthütte association and a member of the Chemnitz Masonic lodge "Zur Harmonie". In 1862 he married Marie Wolfram, a niece of Richard Wagner .

Drawing teacher and municipal drawing inspector in Leipzig

Shortly after taking office as the city's drawing inspector and after starting his work as a drawing teacher at the Petri School in Leipzig, Flinzer summarized the knowledge he had gathered during class in his textbook on drawing lessons (Bielefeld / Leipzig) in 1876 . This work made him known in other European countries and in America. Because of his textbook, Flinzer was described as the harbinger of the so-called art education movement , with whose representatives he then led fierce technical controversies and as a result of which his influence increasingly waned.

Artist

English breeding canaries from Die Gartenlaube (1878)

Drawing from Die Gartenlaube (1878)

Rooted in the art of Biedermeier and Romanticism , Flinzer later created works with clear traces of historicism and with echoes of Art Nouveau . His artistic preference was for the animal world and especially cats and house cats . This earned him - with a slightly ironic undertone - the nicknames "Katzen-Flinzer" and "Saxon Katzen-Raffael". His specialty was the humanized and humorous-satirical depiction of animals, partly based on Wilhelm von Kaulbach and Grandville .

The boar in Wuth (1879)

In his early years he created oil paintings and frescoes , for example for the weaving school in Chemnitz. This was followed by commercial graphic works - for example the well-known design of the “cat” brand for Hoffmann's starch factories in Salzuflen and designs for reform toys for the Dresden workshops . Flinzer also illustrated oval playing cards . Numerous works were aimed at an adult audience, for example in the family magazines Die Gartenlaube and Daheim . Above all, however, Flinzer's illustrations were created for hundreds of children's, youth and picture books. His main work is the picture book König Nobel (1886), a continuation of the famous Reineke Fuchs , which he published together with the youthful writer Julius Lohmeyer . Other authors with whom he worked are Frida Schanz , Victor Blüthgen , Georg Christian Dieffenbach , Johannes Trojan , Edwin Bormann and Georg Bötticher , the father of Joachim Ringelnatz .

Illustration for the German youth in the gazebo from 1875

Finally, his many years of activity for the 19th century youth magazine Deutsche Jugend , for which he illustrated the first print of Theodor Storm's story Lena Wies, should be emphasized. Flinzer also contributed illustrations to the well-known English youth magazine Aunt Judy's Christmas Volume .

Flinzer was a member of the Leipzig artists and scholars' association The Leonids . His students included the graphic artist Hans Domizlaff , the landscape painter Arthur Feudel , the sculptor Albrecht Leistner and the artist and agent Gerd Kaden .

Fedor Flinzer (1902)

Afterlife

A picture book illustration by Flinzer inspired the painter Christian Ludwig Attersee to his provocative early work Kinderzimmertriptychon from 1971. The New Yorker Nayland Blake (born 1960) combined a drawing by Flinzer from the German youth with his own caption in 1989 . The work is now in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , without any indication of Flinzer's authorship .

Memorial and medal

Flinzer's grave was in the New Johannisfriedhof (today Friedenspark ) in Leipzig. In 1914 the Leipzig sculptor Johannes Hartmann created his Fedor Flinzer monument for this grave. The medalist Adolf Lehnert , also from Leipzig, designed a plaque in honor of Flinzer.

Works (selection)

Mrs. Kitten , Chemnitz 1870 (with Emma Hilgenfeld)
The Frog Mouse War , Frankfurt am Main 1878 (with Victor Blüthgen ; modified reprint 1994)
Reineke Fuchs (Free adaptation of the Low German Reinke de Vos.) , Glogau 1881 (with Julius Lohmeyer and Edwin Bormann)
Youth fountain , Berlin 1883 (reprinted 1990)
Contributions to The feathers & fur picture book , London & New York 1884
Poquito á poco , Barcelona 1885 (with Anna Herding)
Happy childhood , Bremen 1885 (with Georg Christian Dieffenbach; modified reprint 1989)
By little and little or first English lesson-book for children from five to ten years of age , Breslau 1885 (with A. Herding)
Tommy Murr's diary , London ca.1886
König Nobel , Breslau 1886 (with Julius Lohmeyer; modified reprint 1979)
Nuevas fábulas , Barcelona 1886 (with Felipe Jacinto Sala)
Reviews in annual reports on the higher education system , Berlin 1886 ff. (Edited by Conrad Rethwisch)
Der Thierstruwwelpeter , Breslau 1887 (with Julius Lohmeyer)
The child's Wunderhorn , Breslau 1889
An animal school in pictures , Breslau 1891 (with Victor Blüthgen; modified reprint 1979)
Struwwelpeter the Younger , Stuttgart 1891 (with Johannes Trojan; an English edition was published under the title Struwwelpeter junior )
How the animals wanted to become soldiers , Leipzig 1892 (with Georg Bötticher; modified reprint 1979)
The dance , Leipzig 1893

A panic from Die Gartenlaube (1879)

Contributions to Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841–1895), Verses for Children and Songs for Music , London 1895

Exhibitions (selection)

2003/2004 Troisdorf , picture book museum
2004 Dresden , Museum for Saxon Folk Art
2004 Reichenbach im Vogtland , Neuberin Museum
2004/2005 Bad Pyrmont , museum in the castle
2005 Bad Salzuflen , City & Bath Museum

"Hoffmann's cat", a world-famous figurative mark by Fedor Flinzer for Hoffmann's starch factories

Sculpture of "Hoffmann's cat" after Flinzer

literature

Enciclopedia Universal Ilutrada Europeo-Americana , Tomo XXIV, Madrid 1924, 83.
Fedor Bochow, Volker Ladenthin, Maria Linsmann: Children, cats, art. The picture book artist Fedor Alexis Flinzer (1832–1911). Wissem Castle - Picture Book Museum, Troisdorf 2003, ISBN 3-9809301-0-6 .
Fedor Bochow: Flinzer, Fedor Alexis . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 41, Saur, Munich a. a. 2004, ISBN 3-598-22781-7 , pp. 254-256.
Fedor Bochow: Flinzer, Fedor . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .

Web links

Title page by Reineke Fuchs (Glogau 1881)

Commons : Fedor Flinzer - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Reineke Fuchs by Fedor Flinzer - collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Froschmäusekrieg (1878) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Fedor Flinzer in the bibliographic database WorldCat
Literature by and about Fedor Flinzer in the catalog of the German National Library
Fedor Flinzer picture book world
Objects by Fedor Flinzer in OPAL (online portal of digitized cultural assets in Lower Saxony)

Individual evidence

↑ Information on the Lodge Zur Harmonie can be found at http://schlossbergmuseum.de/templates/archiv/freimaurer/FM-Homepage.htm .
↑ For further biographical information please refer to: Fedor Bochow: Fedor Flinzer . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
↑ See, for example, Isaac Edwards Clarke: Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States , Part II, Washington 1892, p. 668.
↑ Twietmeyer, A. (publisher) & Flinzer, Fedor (artist): New oval drawing room playing cards . Europeana. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
↑ An illustration for Storm's story Lena Wies can be found at http://www.deutschefotothek.de/obj30105961.html .
↑ See Fedor Bochow: Flinzer, Fedor Alexis, in: Saur Allgemeine Künstlerlexikon. The visual artists of all times and peoples, Vol. 41, Munich / Leipzig 2004, 254–256.
↑ The drawing was printed on page 186 of the second volume of "Deutsche Jugend" from 1873. See file: Painting Nature.jpg .
↑ The illustration was given the title Made with pride by a Queen and can be found at https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/95.6 .
↑ See F. Becker: Monuments. The inauguration of the Fedor Flinzer monument in Leipzig. In: Art Chronicle, New Series, Volume 27, No. 20 of February 11, 1916, EA Seemann, Leipzig 1916, Col. 199 .
↑ A copy of the Flinzer plaque is kept in the Leipzig City History Museum ; see under http://museum.zib.de/sgml_internet/sgml.php?seite=5&fld_0=z0024950 .

personal data
SURNAME	Flinzer, Fedor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Flinzer, Fedor Alexis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German author, educator and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH	April 4, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH	Reichenbach in Vogtland
DATE OF DEATH	June 14, 1911
Place of death	Leipzig