Fritz Butz
Fritz Butz (born May 5, 1909 in Wasseralfingen , German Empire ; † November 9, 1989 in Schwerzenbach , Switzerland ) was a German-Swiss film architect, set and costume designer and illustrator.
Life
Born in Württemberg , Butz and his family came to Switzerland on the eve of the First World War in 1914, where they settled in Olten . In 1916 the family moved to St. Gallen . Mother Butz opened a tailor shop there, while his father had to go to war for Germany. Here Fritz Butz also passed his commercial high school diploma. In 1927 he was able to set up his first small exhibition. Then Butz returned to his Swabian homeland and from 1929 to 1931 attended the graphics class at the Weißendorf Academy in Stuttgart. From 1931 he worked as a graphic artist and painter and carried out orders for companies such as SBB, Swissair, Annabelle magazine and Schweizer Spiegel.
In 1934, Butz began designing sets for cabaret theaters in Switzerland , at this venue for 15 years since the Cabaret Cornichon was founded (until 1949). From 1938 to 1941, in the same capacity, he also designed the decorations for revues and plays in the Corso Theater, and then for other cabarets such as the Düsseldorfer Kom (m) ödchen . In 1948 Butz began his long-term activity at the Schauspielhaus Zurich . By 1977 he was involved in around 30 productions there, including Ibsens Rosmersholm (1957), Ionesco's The Rhinos (1960), Sartre's The Enclosed (1960) and Genet's The Balcony (1967). Guest contracts led Butz u. a. to Vienna ( Theater in der Josefstadt ), Berlin ( Schiller Theater ), Frankfurt am Main and Baden-Baden, where he not only set up classical plays, but also pantomimes, operettas, operas, revues and musicals. In 1981, Butz retired from active professional life and was only concerned with painting.
Beginning with the abortion drama Single Mothers , where he made his debut alongside the exiled Russian Alexander Loschakoff , Fritz Butz was also busy building a large number of Swiss cinema productions, especially in the early 1940s. At that time he was considered the most important film architect in his country after Robert Furrer . After two intensive years, Butz turned his back on the celluloid industry at the beginning of 1943.
Butz was German until 1946; in that year he was naturalized in Switzerland.
Filmography
- 1940: Is Dr. Ferrat guilty? (Dilemma)
- 1941: The little human Matthias
- 1941: Gilberte de Courgenay
- 1941: Emil, me mues just talk to one another!
- 1941: The last postillon from St. Gotthard
- 1941: Romeo and Juliet in the village
- 1941: Bider the aviator
- 1941: Landammann Stauffacher
- 1942: people passing by
- 1942: Intoxication of power - but love wins
- 1942: Steibruch
- 1942: The haunted house
- 1942: Matura trip
- 1961: Mental cruelty
- 1965: Annie Get Your Gun (TV movie)
literature
- Christian Jauslin: Fritz Butz . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 314 f.
- Hervé Dumont : The History of Swiss Film. Feature films 1896–1965 . Lausanne 1987. p. 268
Web links
- Fritz Butz in Galleria il Tesoro
- Fritz Butz in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Publications by and about Fritz Butz in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ Hervé Dumont: The history of Swiss film. Feature films 1896–1965 . Lausanne 1987. p. 268
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Butz, Fritz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Swiss film architect, set and costume designer and illustrator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 5, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wasseralfingen , German Empire |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 9, 1989 |
| Place of death | Schwerzenbach , Switzerland |