Lisel Salzer

Lisel Salzer (born August 26, 1906 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † December 7, 2005 in Seattle ) was an Austrian-American artist and member of the Zinkenbacher painter colony .

Life

Lisel Salzer's maiden name was actually Alice Salzer. She grew up in an upper-class Viennese family. Her mother's name was Helene, née Fried, her father's first name was Hermann and he was an import-export merchant. Both parents perished in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 . After initial private lessons, she attended up to sixth grade, i. H. up to their 14th year of age, a secondary school . The joy of playing the piano was established early on. On the advice of a friend of her father's, who recognized her talent, she switched to the art school for women and girls, the so-called " Vienna Women's Academy ". Here she met Steffi Hirschenhausen and Edith Felkel. Her first teacher was Hermann Grom-Rottmayer , followed by Ferdinand Kitt , who later initiated the Zinkenbach painters' colony. Her artistic training was rounded off by a stay in Paris , where she attended André Lhote's painting class and gathered a variety of artistic impressions. The artistic success was not lacking either, she was one of the first women to exhibit at the Vienna Secession in 1928 .

When she returned to Vienna in 1929 she was able to take over Wolfgang Born's studio . As she said, the studio became a “little Viennese bohemian” . People like the writer Hilde Spiel , the caricaturist Lisl Weil, the composer Erich Zeisl , the painter Bettina Bauer-Ehrlich and her husband, the sculptor Georg Ehrlich met here . During this time she also met her future husband Fritz Grossmann.

Encouraged by her parents, she spent the summer in the Salzkammergut. Here she came to the Zinkenbach painters' colony, although these - according to her own statement - were "exciting and wild days" . Lisel Selzer noticed nothing of the political events. The invasion of Hitler on March 12, 1938 came as a shock because she and her friends were not interested in politics and no distinction had been made between Jews and non-Jews in their surroundings. But after the annexation of Austria, emigration began inexorably among the Jewish citizens, whereby an affidavit was made for the USA , i. H. required a sworn declaration from an American that he was ready to accept the immigrants. However, not everyone could get such a confirmation. In 1939 Lisel Salzer and Fritz Grossmann then emigrated to New York via Paris.

After some transition problems, Fritz Grossmann (who called himself Fred Grossmann after emigrating) was able to open a doctor's practice. She herself began with portrait painting, followed by etchings and enamel work using the so-called Limoges technique . With the latter works she won several awards at the National Ceramics Exhibition in Syracuse, NY . Fresco painting was later added to her work . Lisel Salzer and Fred Grossmann were married on December 29th in New York.

On a vacation trip, she got to know and appreciate the primitive painter Grandma Moses . Vacation trips to the Navajo and Hopi Indians and a work stay in Fort Defiance , Arizona in 1948 , led to the decision to move from New York. After a stopover in Livermore (California), the last move to Seattle took place in 1950 .

After the death of her husband in 1954, Lisel Salzer visited her former home in Vienna. In 1963 she also traveled to Austria, where she a. a. took part in a course at the Salzburg Summer Academy by Oskar Kokoschka . In 1975 she traveled to Limoges, where she admired numerous enamel works in the museum that inspired her. Further trips to Europe followed, the last one in 1984 also taking her to St. Wolfgang , where she met again the companion of her youth, the writer Hilde Spiel .

Representatives of the Zinkenbacher Malerkolonie museum association visited Lisel Salzer several times in Seattle (for the first time in 2002) and she generously donated many of her works to the museum. Even after her death, the museum association was richly presented with pictures, etc.

Lisel Salzer was 99 years old, 3 months and 11 days old.

plant

Between 1928 and 1938, Lisel Salzer took part in a large number of exhibitions at the Vienna Secession , the Hagenbund and the Würthle Gallery in the interwar period. She was also involved in exhibitions in Prague (Prager Kunstverein), Ostrau (Kunstverein), Graz ( Joanneum ) and Budapest (Galerie Würthle).

After emigrating to the USA, between 1941 and 1998 she had exhibitions in New York (including the Hotel Champlain), Detroit (Hudson Gallery), San Francisco (Rotonda Gallery), Seattle (including the Charles and Emma Frye Art Museum ), Wichita ( Wichita Art Association), Olympia (Washington State Capitol Museum), Syracuse, NY (Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts) and Bellevue, WA .

In 2003 the Museum Zinkenbacher Malerkolonie opened the exhibition “Lisel Salzer - From the last and the first things. Pictures before and after 1939 ” .

literature

• Georg Steinmetzer (Ed.): Lisel Salzer. Of the last and the first things - pictures before and after 1939. Exhibition catalog summer 2003. Österreichischer Kunst- und Kulturverlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85437-248-5
• Ruth Kaltenegger (Ed.): Artist friendships. The world is a village. Script for the summer 2006 exhibition. Writings from the Museum Association of Zinkenbacher Malerkolonie VII, St. Gilgen 2006, ISBN 3-902301-05-8
• Elfriede Wiltschnigg: Salzer, Lisel . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 100, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023266-0 , p. 511.

Web links

• The Zinkenbacher Malerkolonie Website of the museum with short biographies