Franz Adolf Graebner

Franz Adolf Gräbner (born October 8, 1944 in Hörstein ; † April 2, 2004 in Hanau ) was a German painter and is considered one of the most important artists in Lower Franconia . His oeuvre includes paintings in oil and acrylic, drawings in pastel, ink and sepia, watercolors, etchings, linocuts, bronze panels, sculptures, relief frescoes as well as glass and wall paintings.

life and work

Franz Adolf Gräbner was born as the second child of the sales representative Franz Gräbner (1916-1993) and Rosa Rosenberger (* 1920-1965). He attended elementary school in Hörstein and graduated from the state middle school in Alzenau. His parents refused his wish to study at an art academy. He first completed an apprenticeship as a draftsman in Aschaffenburg. This time was marked by an encounter with the architect and painter Emil Loos , to whose studio he often had access. After completing his apprenticeship, he began to study architecture at the Polytechnic in Würzburg. In Hanau he met Reinhold Ewald , painter and former lecturer at the drawing academy, who advised him to study at the drawing academy. However, due to financial difficulties, Franz A. Gräbner was forced to work as a draftsman in a building planning office in Frankfurt. During this time he met his first wife, whom he married in 1966 and with whom he had two children. This ended his plans to study art for the time being. The only thing left to do was to become an autodidact . He studied the old masters , the romantics and the impressionists. During this time, study trips took him to Venice, Rome, Paris and Amsterdam.

From 1972 he was looking for the motifs again in his northern Bavarian homeland and its surroundings. He drew in the great outdoors on his excursions in Spessart and Taunus. His style of drawing approached the natural studies of naturalism and impressionism . In 1976, with the support of an art patron from Idstein im Taunus, his first exhibition took place in the "gallery" of the Volksbank in Idstein. Numerous exhibitions in and outside of his home country followed. After separating from his wife in 1979, he worked as a freelance painter.

In 1982 he became a member of the Frankfurter Künstlerclub eV In the Nebbienschen Gartenhaus, the seat and exhibition house of the artist club, several exhibitions took place.

After his book “Mills and Landscapes” was published in 1990, on which Gräbner had worked for two years, an absolute high point in his naturalistic work was reached. Conscious of experiencing the artistic profession as a main occupation, Gräbner looked increasingly for new forms of expression and expressionist elements became more dominant in his work.

In 1992 he married again and now lived with his family in Kleinostheim . Most of his travels took him south. Exhibitions took place in Ascona and Aarau , among others . He painted landscapes and street scenes of the south. He chose his picture and object titles spontaneously. In addition to oil and acrylic paintings, he created etchings, linocuts, watercolors, drawings in chalk and pencil, monotypes , and objects made of cardboard, bronze and stone.

From 1996 he continued to turn to the design of walls. The first public order for a large wall design came from a bank in his home town of Hörstein. Within three months, a wall design with panel paintings in the size of 8 by 2.5 meters was created in the stairwell of the Kleinostheim music school. More relief frescos and wall paintings were created in public and private buildings every year.

Already marked by illness, he created a 15-part way of the cross for the Heilig-Geist-Kirche in Dörnsteinbach in autumn 2003 . Franz Adolf Gräbner died on April 2, 2004.

literature

• Franz Adolf Gräbner (Ed.): Mills and landscapes of the home . Grosskrotzenburg: Keim 1990. ISB: 3-921535336199-0
• Franz Adolf Graebner. Paintings and drawings . With texts by Maria Gräbner. Goldbach: MC Druck 1995.
• Franz Adolf Graebner. Memories of encounters . Goldbach: MC Druck 1996.
• Franz Adolf Graebner. Painting . Goldbach: MC Druck 1997.

Web links

• Literature by and about Franz Adolf Gräbner in the catalog of the German National Library