Heinrich Zita

Heinrich Zita (born June 29, 1882 in Essekle near Znaim , Moravia , † March 9, 1951 in Vienna ) was an Austrian sculptor and medalist .

Live and act

The monument to Rudolf Wegscheider in the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna from 1924.

Heinrich Zita was born on June 29, 1882 in the small village Esseklee (today Nesachleby) near Znojmo into a working class and peasant family. His father ran a gardening business. From an early age Zita was enthusiastic about drawing and the work of wood carvers and sculptors. Determined by his parents, he began an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, but expressed his career aspirations at an early age and sought a career as a sculptor. At the age of 15 he was sent to the Viennese sculpture workshop of Othmar Schimkowitz as an apprentice . In October 1898 - now 16 years old - he applied for a place at the General Sculpture School at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna , whereupon he was accepted and studied under Edmund von Hellmer , among others , and his special class for higher sculpture from 1902 to 1906 visited. Since, according to the university's statutes, under 18s were not allowed to take part in public exhibitions, Zita was only able to take part in an exhibition of the Hagenbund in 1902 . Here he presented the group of sculptures "The Kiss" to the public. As a result, he received a lot of attention in art circles, and Zita soon received his first commission. During his time at master school, he was supposed to create a tomb for a friend.

After successfully completing the General Sculpture School, Zita was awarded the Füger Medal in Gold for Composition . After successfully completing the master class, he received a one-year travel grant, the Schwendtenwein travel grant , to Italy . In 1906 and 1907 he was able to stay in Florence and Rome and also traveled to southern France and Paris . After his return to Graz, he completed some portrait busts and a tomb. In 1911 he participated in the 38th exhibition of the Vienna Secession with the large pottery "Unrestrained Force" and the terracotta bust "Simon Wunderlich". From 1913 onwards Zita was a member of the Vienna Secession and from that year until 1916 she was responsible for a total of ten high reliefs with twenty larger than life figures for the construction of the Oesterreichisch-Ungarische Bank , the main building of what is now the Oesterreichische Nationalbank , in Vienna. At the 54th exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1919, Zita received the Academy’s Reichel Prize for his sculptural works. In April 1919, the professors at the University of Vienna launched a competition to create a university seal. This was then worked out by Oskar Thiede based on the winning design . The execution was entrusted to Zita and the seal was used from the academic year 1925/26 until the time of National Socialism in 1938. Only after the end of the war in 1945 was the seal officially banned and made mandatory by a seal with the coat of arms eagle of the Second Republic (see coat of arms of the Republic of Austria ).

In 1924 he designed the first Austrian 1 Schilling coin with the image of the Austrian Parliament on the reverse. The coin was in circulation from June 16, 1924 and became invalid on December 31, 1926. In addition, Zita also designed the 1 groschen coin, which was first issued on March 1, 1925, as well as the 10 groschen coin, which was also put into circulation in 1925. In 1926 the Austrian State Prize was awarded. Two years earlier he had already modeled the portrait bust of the university professor and chemist Rudolf Wegscheider ; from then on this was set up in the I. Chemical Institute of the University of Vienna . After Wegscheider's death in 1933, Zita also designed his tomb. In 1948/49 the relocation of the monument to the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna was discussed, where the bust was subsequently unveiled on October 8, 1949.

After he was given the professional title of professor in 1927 , Heinrich Zita acted as a teacher of sculpture at the Vienna Women's Academy from 1927 to 1938 , which he also headed from 1932 to 1938 as director. Although he was seriously ill in the later years of his life, he worked on various designs until his death.

On March 9, 1951, Zita died at the age of 68 in Vienna and was buried on March 16, 1951 in one of 24 honorary graves at Baumgartner Friedhof (group J1, no. 192). A little more than ten years after his death, the University of Vienna unveiled another bust by Heinrich Zita in its arcade courtyard. The portrait of the university professor and chemist Ernst Späth , who died in 1946, was probably made shortly before his death.

Awards and honors (selection)

• Füger medal in gold for composition
• 1919: Reichel Prize
• 1926: Austrian State Prize

literature

• Georg Schörner (ed.): Austrian realism using the example of an artist's life - Heinrich Zita. The sculptor takes his time. Vienna 1987.

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Zita  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Heinrich Zita in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
• Heinrich Zita at monuments. The wiki on the monuments of the University of Vienna

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} TU | frei.haus 15 - Journal for employees of the Technical University of Vienna - Anekdota (by Juliane Mikeltzky) - From the seal to the logo (published on May 31, 2010), p. 6
2. ↑ Confiscation of the old Schilling coins. In:  Die Neue Zeitung , December 31, 1926, p. 2 (online at ANNO ). "The originally pronounced Schillings with the year 1924 will finally be withdrawn from circulation on December 31, 1926 and will no longer be considered as legal tender from this point on."