Josef Engelhart

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Josef Engelhart, 1890
Josef Engelhart, self-portrait, 1913

Josef Anton Engelhart (born August 19, 1864 in Vienna , † December 19, 1941 there ) was an Austrian painter and sculptor . He was one of the leading figures on the art scene in Vienna around 1900 and one of the co-founders of the Vienna Secession .

Live and act

Memorial plaque on the house where he was born in Löwengasse in Vienna

Josef Engelhart was the son of the butcher Josef Anton Engelhart (1838-1900) and his wife Maria Apfelthaler (1842-1933) and grew up in Erdberg . After attending secondary school in Radetzkystraße and graduating from high school, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1882 and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1883 . There were Gabriel von Hackl , Johann Caspar Herterich and Ludwig Löfftz his teachers. In 1887 Engelhart returned to Vienna, where he became acquainted with the writers Ludwig Ganghofer , Eduard Pötzl and Vinzenz Chiavacci and where he joined the artists' association Hagengesellschaft . In 1888 he was accepted into the cooperative of visual artists in Vienna , where he exhibited two of his paintings for the first time. In 1891/92 Engelhart went to Paris , where he informed himself about the latest trends in art and also exhibited several of his works in the Sociéte Nationale des Beaux Arts . A trip to Spain followed before Engelhart returned to Vienna in 1893 and applied the new knowledge in his work.

Engelhart was increasingly successful with audiences, while tensions between him and other like-minded painters and the conservative members of the Vienna Künstlerhaus increased. In 1894 he made a study trip to Taormina with Theodor von Hörmann . In 1895 he took part in the International Art Exhibition in Venice and traveled to Brussels and Antwerp . In the same year he married Dorothea ("Doris") Mautner von Markhof (1871–1967), a daughter of Carl Ferdinand Ritter Mautner von Markhof from his first marriage, who had to give up painting at his request. The young couple stayed in Munich until autumn 1896 . Back in Vienna, the increasing tensions within the Künstlerhaus resulted in the separation of a number of artists and the establishment of the Association of Austrian Artists Secession . In addition to Engelhart, the Secession included Gustav Klimt , Koloman Moser and Carl Moll , while 85-year-old Rudolf von Alt took over the honorary chairmanship. In the following years, Josef Engelhart largely postponed his artistic activity and devoted himself with great energy to the organization and economic development of the new association. Through his numerous contacts he was able to win over the most famous international artists for exhibitions in Vienna. The “boys” received moral support from the visit of Emperor Franz Josef to the opening exhibition of the Secession and from Mayor Karl Lueger . Engelhart von Klimt assumed the presidency of the Secession for the first time from spring 1899 to April 1900. His intensive travel activities to the locations of the international art business continued. In 1900 Engelhart was appointed an external member of the Berlin Secession by Max Liebermann .

Engelhart's former studio in Hof Steingasse 15 / Hafengasse 1a

In 1901 Engelhart acquired a house at Steingasse 15, which Ferdinand Fellner III. was generously rebuilt. Inside was a two-story studio. Kolo Moser designed the tile decorations on the facade. Engelhart held legendary festivals here. In the same year he received the Knight's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order . He increasingly began to occupy himself with sculpture and in 1904 was commissioned to design the Karl Borromeo Fountain on the occasion of Karl Lueger's 60th birthday, which he carried out together with Josef Plečnik . Engelhart took part in the world exhibition in St. Louis and received a bronze and a gold medal there. In 1905, a group around Gustav Klimt split off within the Secession, while Engelhart led the remaining artists who were more conservative than the former and were referred to as naturalists. It soon became apparent that the Klimt group could attract more attention than the Engelhart people. In 1905 Kolo Moser married the half-sister of Engelhart's wife, Editha ("Ditha") Mautner von Markhof, and moved to Engelhart's neighborhood, but the relationship between the artists remained tense because Moser belonged to the other group. In 1906 Engelhart left the Catholic Church with his entire family and became Protestant.

In 1909 Engelhart received the order for a Waldmüller monument in Vienna's Rathauspark . The 34th exhibition of the Secession was Engelhart's first large collective exhibition with 233 works on display. In 1910 a collective exhibition followed in Graz with 128 works. He became president of the Vienna Secession for the second time. He traveled to Greece, Egypt, Lake Garda, Rügen and Denmark. In 1911 he delivered drafts for Stollwerck collectors' pictures on behalf of the Cologne chocolate producer Ludwig Stollwerck . a. for the Stollwerck scrapbook No. 12.

After the outbreak of World War I , Engelhart set up a reserve hospital for wounded soldiers in his home and reported to the front as a war painter in the Austro-Hungarian war press headquarters , where he worked in Eastern Galicia , Bosnia and on the Isonzo Front . In 1917, Emperor Karl I. Engelhart awarded the professional title of professor . In numerous pictures he showed the difficult fate of the people affected by the war at the front, as well as the misery in Vienna after the end of the war.

In 1919, Engelhart held another large collective exhibition in the Secession with 267 works. However, he was hostile to the latest trends and developments in the art scene, which was not conducive to his success. In the following years he limited himself to depicting family members and portraits of public figures such as Federal Chancellor Ignaz Seipel . Engelhart was always politically conservative, was already a supporter of Lueger at the time and could not come to terms with the fall of the monarchy. In 1926 he finally resigned from the Secession. In 1935 he suffered a serious traffic accident, the consequences of which additionally hindered his artistic work. After Austria's "annexation" to the German Empire, Engelhart applied to join the Association of German Painters in Austria . In the same year, a Fiaker monument designed much earlier by Engelhart was cast in bronze, which was finally erected in 1991. In 1940/41 Engelhart's paintings were shown for the last time on the occasion of the Christmas exhibition of the Society of Visual Artists Vienna in the Secession building. Engelhart died of cancer in 1941; he was buried in an honorary grave (group 16H, grave 1) at the Vienna Central Cemetery. His memoirs appeared in 1943, but with the exception of a few copies, the entire edition was destroyed by a bomb hit. In 1951 Engelhartgasse in Vienna- Hietzing was named after him.

Engelhart was largely interested in the representation of people, be it nudes, portraits, folk or social scenes. He also painted his own family again and again. Influenced by the French impressionist painting, his treatment of color and light is particularly impressive. At all times Engelhart remained attached to realistic representational painting.

Engelhart, who was one of the most important and successful painters in Austria during his lifetime and who was not least a driving force behind the Vienna Secession, was increasingly forgotten in his later years and especially after his death. In recent years more attention has been paid to it. An exhibition in the Vienna City and State Library in 1992 was followed by Engelhart's first comprehensive retrospective after his death in 2009 in the Hermesvilla in Vienna .

His daughter Elisabeth "Liesi" Engelhart was married to the physicist, radio pioneer and inventor Robert von Neumann-Ettenreich (1892–1951), who called himself Robert Ettenreich after 1919 . A close relative of hers was the teacher and politician Nora Hiltl .

Works

Karl Borromeo Fountain in Vienna-Landstrasse
Fiaker monument

painting

  • Nude in the Green (Künzelsau, Würth Collection, inv. No.2.615), 1889, gouache on paper, 22 × 47 cm
  • Ball on the Hängstatt (Wien Museum, inv.no.34.315), 1890, oil on canvas, 100.8 × 150.5 cm
  • The Erdberger Mais (Wien Museum, inv.no.42.738), 1890, oil on canvas, 58 × 37 cm
  • Self-portrait with cylinder (Vienna, Belvedere, inv.no.5.867), 1892, oil on panel, 61 × 46.5 cm
  • View from my window (Vienna, Belvedere, Inv.No. 1.039), 1892, tempera on paper, 65 × 60 cm
  • The Card Players (Wien Museum, inv.no.42.737), 1893, oil on canvas, 65 × 80 cm
  • In the garden restaurant (Vienna, Belvedere, inv.no.5.212), 1893, oil on panel, 28 × 26 cm
  • Portrait of a woman from Taormina (Wien Museum, inv.no.214.440), 1894, pastel, 64 × 49.5 cm
  • Cows by the water (St. Pölten, Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, inv. No.6.589), 1895, oil on canvas, 92 × 136.3 cm
  • Waldsee-Badende (Wien Museum, inv.no.214.434), oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm
  • Karner People (St. Pölten, Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum, inv. No.6.533), 1900, oil on canvas, 115 × 115 cm
  • Nude standing outdoors (Wien Museum, inv.no.214.430), 1900, oil on canvas, 120 × 65.5 cm
  • Loge in the Sophiensaal (Wien Museum, inv.no.45.641), 1903, oil on canvas, 100 × 95 cm
  • The Flower Girls (Wien Museum, inv.no.214.431), 1903, oil on canvas, 192 × 150 cm
  • Die Rax (Wien Museum, inv.no.74.701), 1905, oil on canvas, 94 × 104 cm
  • The Expellees (Wien Museum, inv.no.214.441), 1915, pastel, 56 × 118 cm
  • Vienna in 1918 (Wien Museum, inv.no.42.739), 1918, oil on canvas, 148 × 191 cm
  • The Nordbahnhof on November 8, 1918 (Wien Museum, inv.no.143.681), 1918, oil on panel, 59.5 × 73.8 cm
  • Portrait of Federal Chancellor Prelate Ignaz Seipel , 1929, oil on canvas, Heeresgeschichtliches Museum , Vienna

plastic

  • Robert Koch monument on Brijuni , around 1900
  • Bust of Josef Plečnik (Vienna, Belvedere, inv.no.1.052), 1907, bronze, 35 cm
  • Karl-Borromäus-Brunnen (Vienna, Karl-Borromäus-Platz), 1904-09
  • Tomb of Rudolf von Alt (Vienna, Central Cemetery)
  • Peter Habig Tomb (Vienna, Central Cemetery)
  • Waldmüller monument (Vienna, Rathauspark), 1908–1913, marble
  • Bust of Ignaz Seipel (Vienna, University), 1933
  • Fiaker monument (Vienna, Fiakerplatz), 1938, bronze
  • John the Baptist ( Stollwerck Mausoleum ), bronze

Fonts

  • Josef Engelhart: A Viennese painter tells - My life and my models , Wilhelm Andermann Verlag, Vienna, 1943

literature

  • Engelhart, Josef. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 251.
  • Herwig Würtz (ed.): Josef Engelhart. A Viennese painter 1864-1941 . Vienna City and State Library, Vienna 1991
  • Hans Bisanz: The painter Josef Engelhart. Co-founder of the Vienna Secession . Vienna 1997
  • Erika Oehring (ed.): Josef Engelhart. Suburb and salon . Exhibition catalog. Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 2009

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stollwerck scrapbook No. 12 "Humor in pictures and words". Verlag Gebr. Stollwerck, Berlin, Pressburg, New York, 1911.
  2. ^ Austrian Army Museum (ed.): Catalog of the war picture gallery of the Austrian Army Museum , Vienna 1923, p. 17
  3. ^ Vienna Museum Exhibition 2009: Josef Engelhart: Vorstadt und Salon , Vienna, Hermesvilla
  4. ^ Entry on Hiltl, Nora (Eleonora) in the Austria Forum, accessed on January 4, 2012

Web links

Commons : Josef Engelhart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Engelhart, Josef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Engelhart, Josef Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1941
Place of death Vienna