Josef August Untersberger

Josef August Untersberger (born July 31, 1864 in Gmunden ; † July 24, 1933 in Munich ; pseudonyms Giovanni and others) was an Austrian sculptor and painter .

life and work

Gmunden and Vienna

Christ on the Mount of Olives, in trade since 1917 as color print and lithograph

Josef Untersberger was a son of the carver of the same name and was trained as a sculptor. No details are known about his youth. In 1883 he took part in the 2nd trade exhibition in Gmunden; One of his works was a crucifix that Queen Marie of Hanover bought. Like the Gmundner Wochenblatt praised, made Unterberger also "the high commission" two portrait - relief medallions , which to the art-historical collections of the imperial family were given in Vienna. He then received the gold gift medal of 12 ducats. The mediator of this order was Count Crenneville, the Chamberlain. This also induced the emperor to receive a scholarship, so that Untersberger went to Vienna in the fall of 1884 to the Academy of Fine Arts . There he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for forging a 100 guilder note.

After his release, Josef Untersberger began to paint. The predella pictures of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph's altars in the parish church of Bad Hall, dated 1892, bear his signature. Other religious representations followed, including altarpieces and illustrations for a Magnificat sheet published by Benziger in Einsiedeln .

Munich

The Holy Family, color printing since 1926

In 1896 Untersberger left Gmunden for good and first went to Munich for a few months, where he also met his future wife Cäzilia Wirthl, then to Innsbruck. In 1904 he finally settled at Schellingstrasse 114 in Munich. He worked as a freelance painter for Max Hirmer, the manufacturer of pictures of saints and communion souvenirs. The Glass Palace refused to exhibit its paintings every year. Until the mid-1920s, Untersberger produced watercolor designs for Hirmer based on various templates, but then turned to other companies. Encouraged by Adolf May in Dresden, he produced the large-format “Mount of Olives Christ” under the pseudonym “Giovanni”, which was based on a motif by Ludwig Thiersch and sold by KAMAG ( Kunstanstalten May AG ) as a technically high-quality chromolithography printed from 18 stones has been. Numerous other mural prints based on his motifs followed. Josef Untersberger, who suffered from paranoia in his last years, died of pneumonia in Munich in 1933. He is buried in Geisenhausen .

Some lithographs after Untersberger and other artists working for the art publishers were subsequently taken up by a Linz painter under the pseudonyms "Marsani", "Paolo", "Dossi" and "Bernardeo" and varied for reprints.

literature

• Barbara Auer, Gerhard Auer: Pious lust for images. "Giovanni" - the master of the religious bedroom image. Focal points. Kulturzeitschrift Oberösterreich 49.1 (1999): 26–31, ISSN  0253-7435
• Wolfgang Brückner: Elfenreigen - wedding dream. The oil pressure production 1880–1940. M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1974, ISBN 3-7701-0762-4
• Wolfgang Brückner: Petty bourgeois and affluent bourgeois wall decorations in the 20th century. In art and consumption - mass image research (= folklore as historical cultural studies 6; publications on folklore and cultural history 82). Pp. 407-444. Wuerzburg 2000
• Ulrike Lange: Faith at home. Testimonies to evangelical piety / In memory. Room monuments in the curriculum vitae. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Friedhof und Denkmal, Kassel 1994, ISBN 3-924447-09-8
• Margot Lutze: The picture carvers and painters Untersberger. Austrian masters of popular religious art in Gmunden and Munich between 1860 and 1930. Jahrbuch für Volkskunde 13 (1990): 177–198, ISSN  0171-9904

Web links

Commons : Josef Untersberger  - album with pictures, videos and audio files