Marie von Miller
Marie von Miller (born February 22, 1861 in Munich as Marie Seitz ; † August 18, 1933 in Starnberg ) was a German painter and the wife of Oskar von Miller .
Life
Marie Seitz was born as the youngest child of the medical professor Franz Seitz and his wife Anna Franziska, geb. von Faulhaber, born in Munich. She had two older siblings. The father Franz Seitz (1811-1892) came from Lichtenau near Ansbach and made a remarkable career as a professor of drug theory in Munich, he made it to the board of the university polyclinic. The mother Franziska von Faulhaber came from Württemberg ; her sister Valerie geb. von Faulhaber was Konrad Maurer's wife .
Artists and writers as well as his father's medical colleagues were frequent guests in his parents' apartment on Brienner Strasse . As a teenager, Marie Seitz learned z. B. know the poet Paul Heyse and the writer Ferdinand Gregorovius . In this environment it was not unusual that the Seitz parents soon became aware of their daughter's artistic talent. Since academic art studies were only possible for women from the 1920s, she received private lessons in drawing and modeling from 1876. As early sketchbooks show, she primarily devoted herself to genre and landscape painting in watercolor , and from 1879 also in oil.
In 1878 she went on a trip on the Rhine with her grandmother , and there were also many summer stays with her parents in Chiemgau , Berchtesgaden, as well as in the Salzburg region and Tyrol . Marie Seitz used these opportunities to draw more and more "in nature" and to do watercolors. For her pictures, contrary to the prevailing “monumental” zeitgeist, she preferred smaller formats.
The painter discovered the possibilities of the relatively young art of photography at an early stage . As early as 1881 she had her first own camera. She edited the pictures artistically, integrated them into graphic works, decorated and colored them.
In the summer of 1876 she met her future husband Oskar von Miller through mutual acquaintances. But it would be another eight years before the marriage, in which she, often in despair, no longer believed in it: Miller, the aspiring engineer and electricity pioneer, gained increasing fame and was often on the road, which did not help her wedding plans. Added to this were the denominational differences between the Protestant Seitz family and the strict von Miller Catholics, who were a thorn in the side of Miller’s parents. Marie Seitz continued to devote herself to painting and photography and saw herself as an artist.
Finally, in 1884, the wedding took place after all, and Marie von Miller took over her marital duties at the side of the prominent husband. The young family lived in Berlin until 1889 , then they returned to Munich, where Oskar von Miller set up an engineering office. Marie von Miller devoted herself to the children and the household until the seventh and last child was born in 1899, two daughters died as children. After that she found more time for her artistic activities. Up until the 1920s he produced a large number of drawings and watercolors, most of which show landscape motifs from Italy and the Bavarian foothills of the Alps. The family owns a villa in Niederpöcking on Lake Starnberg , in which Marie von Miller spent many summer months, which she enjoyed very much. Her works are strongly inspired by the beautiful landscape around the lake.
At the side of her husband, she experienced the founding and development of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the construction of the Walchensee power plant and the almost nationwide power supply in Bavaria - all of which were works by Oskar von Miller. In August 1933, Marie von Miller had a car accident on Lake Starnberg and died on August 18 of the consequences of this accident.
Some of her artistic estate was lost when the Miller'schen town house in Munich was destroyed in 1944. All other works are in family ownership. In the summer of 2005, some of her works were shown for the first time in Starnberg.
literature
- Monika Czernin : Marie von Miller: The painter at Oskar von Miller's side , Volk Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3862221196
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Miller, Marie von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Seitz, Marie (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter, wife of Oskar von Miller |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1861 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Munich , Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 18, 1933 |
| Place of death | Starnberg , Germany |