Karl Steiner (artist, 1902)

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Karl Steiner (born July 24, 1902 in Neunkirchen , Lower Austria ; † July 1, 1981 in Bourg-Blanc , France ) was an Austrian painter and sculptor . Karl Steiner's art belongs to the classical modern and is characterized by strong colors and influences of the New Objectivity .

Life

Karl Steiner was born as the oldest of four brothers in a working-class family. At the age of 14 he began to learn the metalworking trade. During this time the first attempts at painting and drawing were self-taught. After his apprenticeship as a locksmith, he studied from 1922 to 1923 with Eugen Steinhof at the Vienna School of Applied Arts in the master class. Steiner then studied and worked until 1928 in Paris at the Académie Moderne in the company of Fernand Léger , Amédée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier . This environment influenced Steiner's work, which is expressed in his work, which is revolutionary for Austria, which is committed to purism and constructivism . This early work by Steiner is determined by strict, Mediterranean-influenced abstractions of form and color. In 1925 Steiner won the Grand Prix of the Exposition des Arts decoratifs for an abstract sculpture. In 1929 he completed his studies at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna , where he had been taught by Adolf Michael Boehm , Anton von Kenner , Alfred Roller and Oskar Strnad , among others . He founded an advertising agency in Neukirchen. In 1939 he took part in several tenders and won a prize in the city of Vienna's poster competition.

In March 1938 he came into conflict with Austrian National Socialists . After the annexation of Austria , Steiner was arrested. After his release he was under constant surveillance by the Gestapo . From 1938 onwards he turned almost exclusively to religious subjects, especially the Secret Revelation of John and the attempt to depict angels. From 1941 to 1945 he was banned from working. In 1944 Steiner was arrested again and obliged to carry out digging work along the east wall in Burgenland . Steiner survived under the protection of the Heiligenkreuz Abbey . Since that time he has been friends with the prior and later abbot Karl Braunstorfer , who later also married Steiner's wife Marianne Singer. The Cistercian Father Ferdinand Bruckner became his spiritual advisor. Numerous works for the Heiligenkreuz Abbey testify to Steiner's symbiosis with the monastery.

After the Second World War, in 1945, he resumed his artistic activity. He founded the Steinfelder Künstlerbund, which he chaired until 1980. During this time, the main focus was on large projects in the sacred area: These include the apse and the Way of the Cross in the Alland Church , frescoes and wire sculptures in Vienna's churches, the stained glass windows in the Catholic and Protestant Church of Ternitz , and copper work in Schiltern near Seebenstein, glass windows in Stuppach and Natschbach-Loipersbach and in 1949 the facade of the town hall of Neunkirchen. At the same time, angel versions were created on paper.

In 1979 Steiner moved to Brittany / France , where an intense, mystical creative period began. Steiner found a visionary imagery. Immediately before his death in 1981, he occasionally returned to the forms of his youth, working as if in a trance. His last two works on paper were the "Man of Sorrows" and the "Mater dolorosa".

Karl Steiner and Marianne "My" Ullmann

The relationship between Karl Steiner and Marianne Ullmann, known as “My”, in the 1930s is of decisive importance for his biography . The two also cultivated an intensive philosophical and religious exchange of ideas, which shaped Karl Steiner's image of women until his death. As a counter-image to the sophisticated and success-oriented “My”, there was also an admiration for the Paraguayan diplomat's daughter Ingrid Wiengreen , who was later murdered. The relationship was suddenly broken off in early 1937. That hit Steiner hard. The resulting artistic work by Steiner is a double portrait. This double portrait illustrates the ambivalence in Steiner's image of women: on the one hand, the dark-haired Ingrid Wiengreen, the murdered angel figure, on the other, the blonde "My" in a green dress, which from then until his death he portrayed as the fatal "Isais" Gustav Meyrink's novel "The Angel from the Western Window" saw.

Works

"Moses" by Karl Steiner in Millstatt am See
Sgraffito on the town hall of Neunkirchen; together with Fritz Weninger (1948/1950)

Steiner's art belongs to the classical modern and is characterized by strong colors and influences of the New Objectivity . His work consists of sculptures, sculptures, tapestries, wire sculptures, frescoes, glass windows for churches, copper works, ceramics, as well as countless works on paper and canvas.

  • 1947/1948 Parish church Alland , wall painting Last Supper in the choir, Stations of the Cross in the central nave, sgraffito decoration in the baptistery
  • 1948/1950 Neunkirchen town hall with Fritz Weninger monumental sgraffito decor and depiction of industry and trade, market and coinage law
  • 1951 Dr.-Karl-Renner-Hof in Wimpassing in the Schwarzatale Sgraffito 4 seasons
  • 1958/1959 Marien-Dankes-Kirche Wartmannstetten glass painting and stations of the cross
  • 1959 Ternitz parish church, glass ribbons, creed and the 12 apostles
  • 1959/1961 branch church hl. Florian in Stuppach in Gloggnitz Glass painting Georg and Florian
  • 1964 Evang. Lukaskirche in Ternitz glass window main pieces of Luther's catechism as well as the patriarchs Noah, Abraham and Moses
  • 1968 Parish kindergarten Pottschach mosaics Creation story and the world of the child
  • 1978/1979 Outbuilding, Heiligenkreuz Abbey, mosaic of the monastery with the parish church

Exhibitions

literature

  • Heinrich Fuchs: The Austrian painters of the 20th century. Volume 4
  • Jürgen Schilling: Will to Form - Non-Objective Art 1910-1938 in Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary , University of Applied Arts, 1993, p. 258 (biography)
  • Oliver Kühschelm: Lower Austria in the 20th Century , Volume 3, Culture, Böhlau, Vienna, 2008, ISBN 978-3-20578247-6 , p. 16
  • Exhibition catalog of the Wien Museum: Struggle for the City - Politics, Art and Everyday Life around 1930 , Czerin Verlag Vienna, ISBN 978-3-7076-0317-0 , p. 486
  • Friedrich Grasegger: Karl Steiner's work after 1936. Art cries out for bread. In: Christian Bauer (ed.), Karl Steiner - tendencies of the twenties , exhibition Niederösterreichisches Landesmuseum Wien 13 May - 2 August 1992. Sankt Pölten 1992, pp. 91–98

Web links

Commons : Karl Steiner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ingrid Wiengreen, who was also in close contact with the writer Hans Sterneder , was the victim of a robbery on April 24, 1937 at the age of 28 on Neunkirchner Allee , for which later the shoemaker's assistant Herbert Schlögl (* 1916) and the miller's assistant Fritz Fleck (* 1917) sentenced to death and executed on May 12, 1937 in the district court of Wiener Neustadt by the executioner Johann Lang am Würgegalgen (see the list of people executed from 1933 to 1938 under Austrian law ). Ingrid Wiengreen was buried in the urn grove of the Simmering fire hall (Department 1, Ring 1, Group 1, No. 85).
  2. ^ Evidenced by dated and some undated letters. January 13, 1937 letter from My Ullmann to Karl Steiner; April 2, 1937 My Ullmann to Karl Steiner; May 10, 1937 Karl Steiner to My Ullmann; June 7, 1937 My Ullmann to Karl Steiner. The letters are currently in the possession of Steiner's son in Klagenfurt.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Dehio Lower Austria south of the Danube 2003 , artist directory
personal data
SURNAME Steiner, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Neunkirchen , Lower Austria
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1981
Place of death Bourg-Blanc , France