Heinrich Lefler

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Heinrich Lefler around 1900
From: Hans Christian Andersen : The Princess and the Swineherd , Vienna 1897
Heinrich Heine and Elise Krinitz
Archduke Karl in Biedermeier theater costume (1908)
1000 Austrian crowns (banknote)

Heinrich Lefler (born November 7, 1863 in Vienna ; † March 17, 1919 ibid) was an Austrian painter, graphic artist and set designer.

life and work

Heinrich Lefler was born in Vienna as the son of Franz Lefler , who was also an artist.

He studied from 1880 to 1884 at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts with Christian Griepenkerl , from 1884 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Nikolaus Gysis and Wilhelm von Diez . In 1891 he became a member of the Austrian Society of Fine Artists, Künstlerhaus . In 1900 he was a founding member of the Hagenbund .

From 1900 to 1903 Lefler (under the direction of Gustav Mahler ) was director of equipment at the Vienna Court Opera . From 1903 to 1910 he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. ( Gustav Klimt , among others, also applied for this professorship .) One of his students at the academy was Richard Gerstl at short notice . At the same time Heinrich Lefler was from 1903 head of equipment at the Vienna Burgtheater. It is noteworthy that as early as 1902 Lefler designed sets for the staging of a Wagner opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which were shipped to New York. Numerous publications on the work of the artist duo Heinrich Lefler - Joseph Urban in the v. a. The art magazine The Studio , which is renowned in the Anglo-American language area , testify to the artist's level of awareness at the time.

In addition to his work as a set designer in Vienna, Dresden and Berlin, his professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, his pioneering work in the illustration of children's and youth literature, it was the joint with Joseph Urban and his father, the painter Franz Lefler in Weissenbach an der Triesting spent the summer, which offered both a balance and a source of inspiration to the fulfilled artist's life. Frescoes on the house facades of villas and hotels that he carried out together with his father, lovingly designed invitation cards to summer festivals in Weissenbach and children's and summer theater performances staged together with the librettist Camillo Walzel give an impression of this.

The artist duo Heinrich Lefler - Joseph Urban are also responsible for the artistic design of exhibition and anniversary projects such as the Schiller parade of 1905 in Vienna and the parade along Vienna's Ringstrasse on the occasion of the Kaiser anniversary of 1908, both accompanied by elaborate designed publications. Under the artistic direction of Hugo von Tschudi , whose commitment to art was given a special mention in Wassily Kandinsky's theoretical work, On the Spiritual in Art , another splendid example of book art was created in Germany in 1907 with top-class illustrations by Heinrich Lefler and Josef Urban, illustrations that are artistically based on the work of William Morris and that process suggestions from the Arts and Crafts Movement in a creatively independent way . On his 60th birthday, the writer Detlev von Liliencron was honored with a festschrift designed artistically by Heinrich Lefler, to which well-known authors of the time, including Peter Altenberg , Hermann Bahr , Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach , Roda Roda , Peter Rosegger , Ferdinand von Saar , Arthur Schnitzler , Stefan Zweig a . v. a., contributions.

Heinrich Lefler's drafts of banknotes and warrants, as well as his pioneering posters for the company "Auerlicht" and - to make a connection with Heinrich Lefler's beloved summer resort in Weissenbach an der Triesting - also fit Morris' idea of ​​the artistic penetration of all areas of life to produce - the advertising posters for the Krupp company in Berndorf, which in their statement thematize precisely that reconciliation between work and art that later also characterizes the “style classrooms” of the school that was later built there.

There is also artistic work for the watercolorist club, for the bicycle and flower parade, design of calendars and numerous fairy tale and song books as well as illustrative material for school lessons and illustrations for the youth magazine Jugendrotkreuz of the Austrian Red Cross. The successful collaboration with the director and theater director Rainer Simons at the Kaiser-Franz-Josephs-Jubiläums-Stadttheater, today's Vienna Volksoper , should not go unmentioned . Evidence of mutual respect and v. a. A successful stage artistic collaboration with Max Reinhardt can be found in the Max Reinhardt Collection at Harvard University in the USA, in which important costume and stage designs by Heinrich Lelfer have been preserved. Together with Josef Urban, Lefler is responsible for furnishing the Vienna City Hall Cellar and for the design and furnishing of Count Esterhazy's palace.

In 1903 Heinrich Lelfer married the opera singer Mina Wiesmüller , whose portrait adorned the 1,000- crown banknote he designed in 1902 .

Heinrich Lefler died in Vienna in 1919. He has a grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery . In 1932, Heinrich-Lefler-Gasse in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

Lefler and Joseph Urban

The first contact between the two artists was mediated through their mutual friend, the singer and actor Leo Slezak . Urban later married Lefler's sister Maria (Mizzi), which in addition to friendship and business ties, also established family ties between the two.

Together with his brother-in-law Joseph Urban, Lefler was one of the most important artists of European Art Nouveau. Both artists often worked together and designed z. B. a calendar published in 1905 with motifs from the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm or a calendar from 1913 (1912) with fairy tales retold by Hugo Salus by Hans Christian Andersen . Urban always provided the decorative frame for Lefler's illustrations.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Lefler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Lefler, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 17, 1919
Place of death Vienna