Fritz Boscovits

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Fritz Boscovits: Self-Portrait, 1909, oil on cardboard, 42 × 32 cm

Fritz Boscovits (born November 13, 1871 in Zurich , † June 22, 1965 in Kilchberg ZH ; actually Franz Friedrich Boscovits , called Fritz , later Bosco ) was a Swiss painter , caricaturist and graphic artist .

Live and act

origin

Fritz Boscovits' father Friedrich (also called Johann Friedrich, originally Boskovicz) was a Hungarian citizen (born in Budapest in 1845, died in Zurich in 1918) and had studied painting and drawing in Vienna and Munich. His mother Mathilde geb. Adam (born 1849 in Munich, died 1910 in Zurich) came from the Munich artist family Adam . Together with Jean Nötzli, Johann Friedrich Boscovits founded the satirical weekly magazine Der Nebelspalter in Zurich in 1875 and designed it as a draftsman, editor and from 1902 to 1912 also as a publisher. In 1887 the family was naturalized in Zurich.

Fritz Boscovits: Weisse Rosen , ca.1908 , oil on cardboard, 34.7 × 26.2 cm
Fritz Boscovits: Bürkliplatz Zurich , 1950, oil on cardboard, 19.9 × 29.5 cm

Career

Fritz Boscovits attended the Zurich School of Applied Arts , founded in 1878 (now the Zurich University of the Arts ) from 1887 to 1889 , and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1890 to 1896 . His teachers were Ludwig von Löfftz (1845–1910), Franz von Defregger (1835–1921) and Paul Hoecker (1854–1910). From 1897 he worked in Zurich as a graphic artist, draftsman, caricaturist and painter. Travels take him to Florence and Fiesole, where he befriended Carlo Böcklin and his father Arnold Böcklin . In 1900 he married Lilly Köhl from Munich. In 1906 the family moved with their children to Zollikon and lived there from 1917 until his death in the house Im Felsengrund , since 1990 a local museum.

Boscovits room in Haus Im Felsengrund in Zollikon

Public offices, memberships

Boscovits had been a member of the Zurich Artists' Association since it was founded in 1897, on its board from 1902 and president from 1905 to 1908, free member from 1924. Sigismund Righini became a good friend of his; In addition to joint mandatory appointments in various commissions, both met to paint together. In 1898 he became a member of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft and served on its board from 1914 to 1922 and from 1928 to 1929. In 1904 he joined the GSMBA.

Fritz Boscovits: Zurich Section, Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 1917, poster, lithograph, 128 × 90 cm

Works

The early work is under the influence of the Munich School ; Boscovits adopted the clay-tone painting style that was predominant at the time. From 1905 his painting style developed towards strong contours and strong, bright colors that were applied with bold brushstrokes. Stylistically, he moves in the circle of the new Swiss painting, which is led by artists such as Hodler, Giacometti and Amiet. During these years his strongest oil paintings were created. Among his late works there are many landscape and genre pictures that no longer show the same impetuous approach, but are painted more calmly, with smaller, fine lines and in more subdued colors.

Fritz Boscovits: Album Bildende Künste - Sechseläuten pageant for the opening of the Kunsthaus Zürich , 1910
Mural above the entrance to the Zollikon seaside resort

About 300 works of his oil paintings are known today. He carried out important commissions for Zurich's Sechseläuten : between 1897 and 1914 he worked five times as a draftsman for the festival program. From his wall painting, the mural of the mermaid above the entrance to the Zollikon seaside resort and the three frescoes “Women and Deer” at the natural science institute at ETH Zurich have been preserved .

Fritz Boscovits: The 4 Elements , 1914, caricature in Nebelspalter , No. 43, November 28, 1914

Boscovits became known to a wider audience as a draftsman for the satirical magazine Der Nebelspalter . Over the decades, he created over 5,000 drawings and caricatures, most of them under the abbreviation «Bosco». In the 1930s and 40s he published around 3,000 caricatures in other Swiss magazines.

Fritz Boscovits: Künstlergütli Zurich , 1905, lithograph from Malerische Winkel , 20 × 30 cm

Boscovits earned his living for himself and his family, apart from his work as a cartoonist, also as a graphic artist. He designed a large number of posters, invitation and menu cards, etc. on behalf of various institutions. The influence of Art Nouveau can be seen particularly well here. In 1905 he created Malerische Winkel , 36 lithographs with motifs from the city of Zurich. Boscovits regularly participated in the exhibitions of the Zurich Art Society, the Zurich Artists' Association and the GSMBA.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • Art exhibition (Amiet, Boscovits, Boss, Buri, Cardinaux, Emmenegger, Giacometti, Hodler). Villa Osenbrüggen, Zurich, November 1 - December 6, 1908.
  • Aid campaign for Zurich artists , (Paul Bodmer, Fritz Boscovits, Willy Fries, Ferdinand Hodler and others) Kunsthaus Zurich , December 10, 1914 - January 17, 1915.
  • 6th exhibition by the GSMBA, Kunsthaus Zürich, October 3 - 31, 1915.
  • Fritz Boscovits, solo exhibition, Galerie Neupert, Zurich, May 9-31, 1916.
  • 17th national art exhibition, Kunsthaus Zurich, May 26 - July 22, 1928. Catalog: Fretz, Zurich 1928. (Ernst Aebi,… Cuno Amiet… Fritz Boscovits and others)
  • 18e national exposition des Beaux-Arts. (Otto Abt ... Cuno Amiet, Fritz Boscovits, Willy Fries and others) Palais des expositions, Geneva, August 30th - October 11th 1931.
  • New Swiss wall painting. Kunsthaus Zürich, November 17, 1934 - January 9, 1935, with exhibition catalog (Cuno Amiet… Fritz Boscovits and others)
  • Exhibition (Fritz Boscovits, Pietro Chiesa, Alfred Marxer and others) Kunsthaus Zürich, September 24 - October 21, 1936.
  • Memorial exhibition for Fritz Boscovits. Oberdorfstrasse 14, Zollikon, from December 17, 1965.
  • Fritz Boscovits - oil painting. Cartoons. Graphic. A special exhibition in the artist's former studio and home, from March 11 to July 16, 2017, curated by Regula Schmid and the Zollikon local museum.

Literary works and illustrations

  • Picturesque corners in Zurich, original lithographs. Self-published, Zurich 1905, 36 sheets in a box (illustrations by Fritz Boscovits father and son).
  • 60 years Nebelspalter: a brief overview of Bosco, the son of the founder JF Boscovits. In: Nebelspalter , No. 50, December 13, 1935, pp. 18 and 20.
  • Memories of Arnold Böcklin. In: Schweizer Kunst , No. 3, March 1943, pp. 19–20 (written as a letter, beginning: “My dear College Hügin”).
  • Pageant for the inauguration of the new University of Zurich: "Pictures from the history of scientific life"  : organized on Sechseläuten , April 20, 1914, by the guilds of Zurich and the student body. Text by Arnold Meyer; Drawings by Fritz Boscovits sen. u. jun. ; official festival album, ed. from the Central Committee of the Guilds of Zurich. Fretz, Zurich [1914], 48 p., Ill.
  • Fritz Boscovits and Otto Helmut Lienert: The funny Bo-Li book. Association printing, Bern 1938.

literature

  • NZZ, October 10, 1961 (90th birthday)
  • GSMBA Mitteilungsblatt, No. 9/10, September / October 1965, pp. 5–6 (death)
  • Heini Waser: Memories of Fritz Boscovits (1871-1965). In: Zolliker Jahrheft , 11, 1988, pp. 34–42.
  • Thomas Kain: A forgotten celebrity of the Zurich art scene: on the 50th anniversary of the death of the Zurich painter Fritz Boscovits ... In: NZZ, June 20, 2015, p. 21.
  • Thomas Kain, Regula Schmid (ed.): Fritz Boscovits (1871–1965) oil painting. German-English parallel text, translation by Regula Schmid. fap, Fine Art Publishing, Uetikon am See 2015, ISBN 978-3-9524232-0-2 . (Ent .: Gertrud Blumer-Schönenberger and Verena Schmid-Schönenberger: childhood memories of the grandparents in Zollikon ZH ; Kathrin Frauenfelder: the works of the painter Fritz Boscovits in the art collection of the canton of Zurich  ; Hans Widmer: drawings for the caricatures of the satirical sheet «Nebelspalter» ; Regula Schmid (arthist. Aspects: Thomas Kain): biography of Fritz Boscovits. )
  • Regula Schmid: Bosco: Fritz Boscovits and the Nebelspalter. Verlag Hier und Jetzt, Baden Switzerland 2017; ISBN 978-3-03919-424-7 (with picture section: drawings from the Nebelspalter 1889–1956, pp. 43–183).

Lexicons

  • Fritz Boscovits , in: Schweizerisches Künstler-Lexikon / ed. from the Swiss Art Association, red. by Carl Brun. Huber Verlag, Frauenfeld 1905–1917, Volume 1, p. 180.
  • Fritz Boscovits , in: General Lexicon of Fine Arts of the 20th Century / red. and ed. by Hans Vollmer. Seemann, Leipzig 1953–1962, 6 volumes (reprinted Munich 1992)
  • Fritz Boscovits , in: Artist Lexicon of Switzerland, 20th century / red. Eduard Plüss, Hans Christoph von Tavel. Huber Verlag, Frauenfeld 1958–1967, 2 volumes (reprinted 1983)
  • Doris Zollikofer: Fritz Boscovits , in: Biographisches Lexikon der Schweizer Kunst / ed. SIK-ISEA, Karl Jost. Verlag NZZ, Zurich 1998, 2 volumes, volume 1, p. 140.

Web links

Commons : Fritz Boscovits  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Regula Schmid in: Fritz Boscovits (1871-1965) oil painting. Ed .: Thomas Kain, Regula Schmid. Fine Art Publishing, Uetikon am See 2015, ISBN 978-3-9524232-0-2 , p. 229.
  2. ↑ To the whole section: Kathrin Frauenfelder: The works of the painter Fritz Boscovits in the art collection of the Canton of Zurich. / Hans Widmer: Drawings for the caricatures in the satirical magazine “Nebelspalter”. In: Thomas Kain, Regula Schmid (ed.): Fritz Boscovits (1871–1965), oil painting. fap, Fine Art Publishing, Uetikon am See 2015, ISBN 978-3-9524232-0-2 .
personal data
SURNAME Boscovits, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boscovits, Franz Friedrich (real name); Bosco (signature)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter, caricaturist and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 1965
Place of death Kilchberg ZH