Hans Figura

Hans Figura (born January 22, 1898 in Nagykikinda, today Kikinda , Serbia , † February 17, 1978 in Vienna ) was an Austrian graphic artist ( etcher ) and landscape painter .

Life

Hans Figura was born in Nagykikinda, a town in the Hungarian Banat , during the Austro-Hungarian Empire . From 1908 Figura came to Vienna, attended and graduated from grammar school there and received training at the graphic teaching and research institute. After serving in the First World War , he briefly began studying medicine, but increasingly occupied himself with handicrafts in bookbinding, the art of batik , leather printing and illustrations . From 1922, after his first artistic successes, Hans Figura devoted himself entirely to graphics and painting. He made numerous study trips through Europe and in 1929 to the USA. In World War II, used as an artillery officer, he settled in 1944 in Villach down. Nevertheless, Vienna remained his most important place of work.

plant

Figura devoted himself mainly to the landscape, with the focus of his work on etchings , especially his color etchings . Between 1918 and 1974, more than 850 high-precision etchings were created in the reproduction of the landscape's character and the depiction of the buildings within it. He drew in a soft, aquatint-like style, similar to the works of his artist colleagues, the graphic artist and etcher Luigi Kasimir and Josef Eidesberger (* 1899, † 1991). He masterfully used the atmospheric possibilities of this technique. He also printed on white silk . His most common motifs are cities and landscapes of historical, cultural and touristic importance in Europe and the USA. Several landscape paintings were created in oil, mainly motifs from the time of his stays in Carinthia .

literature

• Fuchs Heinrich: The Austrian painters born between 1881 and 1900 , Volume I, Vienna, self-published, 1976.
• Johnson Jane and Greutzner Alan (compilers): The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940. An Antique Collector's Club Research Project listing 41,000 artists . Baron Publishing, Woodbridge, Suffolk (England), 1976, ISBN 0-902028-36-7 .
• Gmeiner Astrid - Pirhofer Gottfried: The Austrian Werkbund. Alternative to classical modernism in architecture, room and product design . Salzburg / Vienna, Residenz-Verlag, 1985, ISBN 3-7017-0427-9 .