Fritz Möser

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The lost Son
Odysseus

Fritz Möser (born October 19, 1932 in Benešov nad Ploučnicí , Czechoslovakia ; † February 2013) was a German linocut artist .

Life

Fritz Möser was born in 1932 in Benešov nad Ploučnicí in Czechoslovakia. When he was 14 years old, on the run from the Red Army, he and his parents came to Memmingen in Upper Swabia , where he has lived since then. The father founded a printing company in the Memmingen Hühnerbergsiedlung in the southwest of the city, where Möser worked until it closed in 1982. In addition to his work as a typesetter, he illustrated texts with linocuts . This art he acquired self-taught after the first order from a publisher from Buxheim had come. Until then he had no experience with linocut. Over time he developed graphic cycles, including on world literature topics that were not printed in his father's business. In 1965 he opened his first exhibition in Füssen . Over 250 other exhibitions followed, including by the Goethe-Institut in Europe and North America in cities such as Berlin, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Munich, Vienna, Milan, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton, Nottingham and Birmingham. At the York Arts Festival, which took place on the occasion of the 1900 anniversary of the city of York , he provided the official German contribution. The exhibitions were mostly organized by the gallery owner couple Modlmayr-Heimath from Gemen . The artist lived extremely withdrawn and usually only kept in touch with the couple. He ended his artistic career almost simultaneously with the closure of his father's business. He only carried out a few colorations of his linocuts in recent years. In an interview about the age of 75, he said: “Art made me free” and “I gave everything I had”. He still lived in his parents' house in Memmingen. Fritz Möser died in February 2013 in a nursing home.

Works

In the foreground of his works were the themes of Greek mythology, the Bible and the poetry of the 20th century. He produced around 50 picture cycles and provided around 300 books and original fonts with his works. There are cycles by him on the subjects of the Dance of Death , Stations of the Cross , Primavera , Life of the Virgin , Odysseus , Perseus and Four Seasons .

Many of his linocuts are in nationally known museums. These include the Kettle's Yard Gallery of the University of Cambridge , the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart , the University Library of Münster , the British Library and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. He donated other works to the city of Memmingen for their museums or were acquired by it.

Reviews

"Expressive, gloomy, sometimes angular and hard" are Möser's works, wrote the Memminger Zeitung on November 17, 2007 on the occasion of his 75th birthday. The cultural scientist Hans-Jörg Modlmayr wrote in the same year: “For us modern recipients, Fritz Möser not only translated the literary models into images, but also explored, interpreted and updated them. As a reader of literature he amazes with his visionary gift of recognizing and presenting revelations of encrypted insights and messages behind the words. Fritz Möser grasps the substance of the texts more precisely than many exegetes, mythologists and philologists in his enormous graphic work. He does not get lost in superficial details. In his linocuts he proves to be a brilliant psychologist who locates and precisely understands the psychological driving forces behind the masks. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Memminger Zeitung , November 17, 2007, culture page
  2. ↑ Master of the Linocut has died , Memminger Zeitung, February 14, 2013, page 34
  3. ^ Memminger Zeitung , November 17, 2007, culture page
  4. ↑ Waiting. A literary magazine for individuals , issue 175, p. 30f, Hannover 2007
personal data
SURNAME Möser, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German linocut artist
DATE OF BIRTH October 19, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Benešov nad Ploučnicí , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH February 2013
Place of death Memmingen