Marie Kirschner

Self-portrait around 1880

Marie Kirschner (Czech Marie Louisa Kirschnerová ; born January 7, 1852 in Prague , † June 30, 1931 in Košátky ) was a German-Czech painter and glass designer.

life and work

Marie Kirschner came from a German family; her father was the landowner Carl Kirschner, her mother Anna, geb. Polak. The family lived on Gut Lochkow near Prague , which the Jewish father had acquired in 1848 after the ghetto was lifted . Maria Kirschner had two younger siblings. She studied with Adolph Lier in Munich in 1870/71 , after which she continued her training in Paris . Her teachers there included Jules Duprés and Alfred Stevens . While she initially concentrated on painting , she later turned to the arts and crafts , especially glass design.

From 1887 Marie Kirschner lived in Berlin with her younger sister Aloisia Kirschner , who was also called Lola or Lula and used the pseudonym Ossip Schubin, but spent the summers in Bohemia. She was a member of the Berlin Lyceum Club and was a member of the board of the Association for Artists and Art Lovers . In Prague she also belonged to the progressive American women's club. Zdenka Braunerová was one of her friends there .

Marie Kirschner furnished the homes of wealthy industrialists such as Rath, Siemens, Lipperheide and Stollwerck. In 1904 she received a silver medal for a room design at the World Exhibition in St. Louis . She regularly gave her Thursday teas in her studio on Steglitzer Strasse. She was sponsored by Countess Maximiliane von Oriola and she was close friends with Marie von Olfers .

Like her sister Aloisia, Marie Kirschner remained unmarried throughout her life. She was buried in the family grave in the Malvazinky cemetery in Prague.

Marie Kirschner's glass designs are considered to be a highlight of glass design in European Art Nouveau . According to Helena Brozkova, the designs, which were surprisingly simple at the turn of the century, anticipate features of functionalism . Most of their glasses were produced by Lötz Witwe.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Petra Wilhelmy, The Berlin Salon in the 19th Century (1780-1914) , de Gruyter 1989, ISBN 978-3110118919 , p. 703
2. ^ A contribution by Thomas Kirschner, online at: www.radio.cz , from December 19, 2004, in Czech
3. ↑ A contribution by Thomas Kirschner, online at: www.radio.cz from October 23, 2005, in Czech
4. ↑ Online catalog for the 2010 exhibition at the Frauenau Glass Museum, online at: www.jean-beck.de ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.