Hans Piffrader

Hans Piffrader (born August 5, 1888 in Klausen , † November 25, 1950 in Bozen ; also Johann Piffrader ) was an expressionist South Tyrolean sculptor and graphic artist .

biography

Piffrader's relief "The Triumph of Fascism" from 1939/43 at Casa Littoria in Bozen (today's tax office), before its historicization in 2017

The son of an innkeeper attended elementary school in Klausen and then the renowned Catholic Franciscan high school in Bolzano. From 1907 to 1911 he studied at the state trade school in Innsbruck . During the First World War , Piffrader served as first lieutenant in the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger . He fought in the high mountain war on the Dolomite Front against the attacking Italians, including on the Pasubio : The particularly cruel conditions of this war had a significant impact on his later work.

After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Danube Monarchy , he attended courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna until 1924 and joined the Secession and Art Nouveau styles . His homeland in South Tyrol was annexed by Italy in 1920 . After the fascists under Mussolini came to power in 1922, Piffrader opportunistically joined the fascist artists and settled in Bolzano in 1931. In 1939, Piffrader chose Italy for the option forced by Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler and now called himself Giovanni instead of "Hans". In 1940 he became a member of the fascist party .

At the height of the fascist regime's power, in 1939 Piffrader took part in an exhibition in the newly established technical high school " Cesare Battisti " (named after an irredentist executed by the Austrians in 1916 ) in Bolzano together with other artists from South Tyrol and the Trentino such as Eraldo Fozzer , Ignaz Gabloner , Erwin Merlet and Albert Stolz . He introduced a relief of bronze from depicting a heroic, muscular, Roman general, pointing triumphantly to a tamed lion, next to the abbreviation of numerous fascist organizations. A scaled-down replica of this relief was given as a gift to Duce (leader) Mussolini. The relief is exhibited in the school's entrance hall to this day.

In 1939, Piffrader took on the large order of his own free will to create a monumental relief for the Casa Littoria ("House of Fascism") on the court in Bolzano. It should dominate the entire width of the facade and glorify the twentieth anniversary of the fascist seizure of power . From 57 blocks of travertine stone, Piffrader carved a work 36 meters wide and 5.5 meters high in two rows with allegorical representations from the history of the fascist movement. In the center of the 95 t heavy and 198 m² relief rides a proud Duce, his hand stretched out in a fascist greeting. Workers, peasants and soldiers crowd around Mussolini. The battle slogan of the Italian fascists Credere, obbedire, combattere (“believe, obey, fight”) as well as the abbreviations of important fascist organizations are chiseled next to the rider. The monumental relief, the installation of which could not be fully completed due to Mussolini's deposition in the summer of 1943, was only completed after the Second World War - the three panels that had not yet been installed in 1943 were installed in 1957. The building now serves as a tax office and still bears the relief on its front side, which, however, was defused in 2017 by adding a lettering by Hannah Arendt . After 1945 Piffrader was not prosecuted. He even founded the South Tyrolean Artists Association and was its president and later honorary president from 1947 to 1949. Hans Piffrader died of a stroke on November 25, 1950 in his home in Bolzano.

art

Piffrader's relief on Bolzano's court square after the redesign

The traumatic experiences of the First World War had a significant influence on Piffrader's artistic work. In expressive realistic depictions he denounces war and shows dramatic visions of suffering and despair; Hope for redemption can only be guessed at. In his extensive graphic and sculptural life's work, he combined these symbols of human suffering with the Catholic South Tyrolean heritage in numerous religious motifs such as crucifixions and processions in expressionist imagery. His vocation as a sculptor was based on the tradition of wood carving that had been cultivated in South Tyrol for centuries .

The fate of his homeland South Tyrol and his own life are also reflected in his works. The heroic, threatening poses in his reliefs show the painful tension and contradiction between artistic freedom and one's own ideological adaptation to the ruling regime.

Works

Memorial of the Kaiserjäger on Bergisel near Innsbruck 1923
Gelsenkirchen War Memorial (Germany) 1926
Facade relief at the Südtiroler Sparkasse in Bozen, 1936
Bronze relief "Veni, vidi, vici" in the Technical High School in Bolzano "Cesare Battisti" 1938
Monumental relief on the Casa Littoria at the Court Square in Bolzano 1939–1942

large-format charcoal pencil sketches for the Mussolini relief 1939–1942

Cast bronze sculpture “ Pietà ”, today in the entrance area of the Bolzano hospital

Descent from the Cross in walnut, in the chapel of the Oberau cemetery in Bozen

Drawings, now in the Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum Innsbruck

literature

Josef Gasteiger: Hans Piffrader: sculptor and graphic artist . With contributions by Luis Trenker u. Erich Kofler. Athesia, Bozen 1978, ISBN 88-7014-072-5 .
Mathias Frei: Hans Piffrader . South Tyrolean Artists Association, Bozen 2005.
Carl Kraus , Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol , Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , p. 199-207 .
Erich Egg : Piffrader Johann (Hans). In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 71.

Web links

Commons : Hans Piffrader - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Proof in the party newspaper La Provincia di Bolzano , issue of October 22, 1940.
↑ Sabrina Michielli, Hannes Obermair (Red.): BZ '18 –'45: one monument, one city, two dictatorships. Accompanying volume for the documentation exhibition in the Bolzano Victory Monument. Vienna-Bozen: Folio Verlag 2016. ISBN 978-3-85256-713-6 , pp. 66–67.
^ Hannes Obermair: Da Hans a Hannah - il "duce" di Bolzano e la sfida di Arendt . In: Il Cristallo. Rassegna di varia umanità . tape 60 , no. 1 . Edizioni alphabeta Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-88-7223-312-2 , ISSN 0011-1449 , p. 27-32 (Italian).
↑ Carl Kraus, Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol , Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , p. 120–121 (with illustration and description) .

personal data
SURNAME	Piffrader, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Piffrader, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Austrian-Italian sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH	August 5, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH	Klausen (South Tyrol)
DATE OF DEATH	November 25, 1950
Place of death	Bolzano

[1] Proof in the party newspaper La Provincia di Bolzano , issue of October 22, 1940.

[2] Sabrina Michielli, Hannes Obermair (Red.): BZ '18 –'45: one monument, one city, two dictatorships. Accompanying volume for the documentation exhibition in the Bolzano Victory Monument. Vienna-Bozen: Folio Verlag 2016. ISBN 978-3-85256-713-6 , pp. 66–67.

[3] Hannes Obermair: Da Hans a Hannah - il "duce" di Bolzano e la sfida di Arendt . In: Il Cristallo. Rassegna di varia umanità . tape 60 , no. 1 . Edizioni alphabeta Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-88-7223-312-2 , ISSN 0011-1449 , p. 27-32 (Italian).

[4] Carl Kraus, Hannes Obermair (ed.): Myths of dictatorships. Art in Fascism and National Socialism - Miti delle dittature. Art nel fascismo e nazionalsocialismo . South Tyrolean State Museum for Cultural and State History Castle Tyrol , Dorf Tirol 2019, ISBN 978-88-95523-16-3 , p. 120–121 (with illustration and description) .