Martha Cunz

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Martha Cunz, self-portrait at the age of 23

Martha Cunz (born February 24, 1876 in St. Gallen ; † May 15, 1961 ) was a Swiss wood cutter , lithographer , painter and draftsman .

Life

Cunz grew up in St. Gallen with three siblings in a middle-class background. She received her first lessons from Johannes Stauffacher at the St. Gallen drawing school for industry and trade and from Oscar Huguenin in a boarding school for girls in Bôle (NE). From 1893 she copied old masters in the art museum in St. Gallen and was instructed by Emil Rittmeyer . Through the mediation of Rittmeyer and the Munich painter Max Josef Pitzner, Martha Cunz came to Adolf Hölzel in Dachau in the spring of 1896 . After one semester, she switched to the art school in Munich, where Ludwig Schmid-Reutte and Christian Landenbergerbecame their teachers. In 1898 she completed a painting semester with Peter Paul Müller. In 1900 she stayed in Paris to study at the school of Luc-Olivier Merson and Lucien Simon .

The future woodcutter received the decisive impetus for her later artistic activity in 1901 on the occasion of a lithography course with the Munich graphic artist Ernst Neumann. In the winter of 1901–02 he created the first independent color woodcut entitled Evening , a view of the snow-covered city of St. Gallen. Shortly after taking the course with Neumann, Cunz found her own style. The artist was able to quickly gain a dominant position within the group of Munich wood cutters. In 1903 she was a founding member of the German Graphics Association and the graphic association Die Walze initiated by Albert Welti . In April 1905, her colored woodcuts, together with works by Wassily Kandinsky and other Munich artists, were published for the first time in the magazine Deutsche Kunst und Decoration; with the sheet Blick auf den Säntis from 1904, she demonstrably influenced Kandinsky in two Murnau landscapes from 1909. Hugo Siegwart created a portrait bust of Cruz in 1906.

In 1904 and 1911 the artist traveled to Holland, followed by a trip to Italy in 1914. Until the outbreak of World War I , Cunz lived and worked in Munich and only returned to Switzerland for annual painting stays in the mountains. In 1920 she had a studio built at her parents' house in St. Gallen and lived with her sister Clara until her death. In 1927 the last of a total of 71 woodcuts was created, which - like the first from 1901–02 - has the winter city of St. Gallen as its theme. The lithographic work (mostly commissioned work ) lasted until 1931. During the next twenty years she devoted herself to painting and mainly made landscapes and portraits .

plant

The importance of Cunz's oeuvre lies in the woodcut, especially the Japanese-style multicolored woodcut . Her closed and extensive work can be found in Switzerland. Although she belongs to the second generation of Munich wood cutters, she made a significant contribution - also in international comparison - to the renewal of artist graphics in the early 20th century. Cunz's works are characterized by the play of delicately graded and yet clearly contrasted areas of color that intersect and penetrate each other in many ways. The artist stayed true to her style. It never changed the natural shape and color, but gave it independence by simplifying it into a few areas and contrasts. Cunz had little understanding of the Expressionist woodcut and generally closed himself off to new tendencies. She stayed with the color woodcut and its decorative possibilities of expression and achieved her most valid statement in this technique.

literature

  • Rudolf Hanhart (Ed.): Art Museum St. Gallen, catalog of the collection. St. Gallen 1987, pp. 245-249.
  • Daniel Studer: Martha Cunz (1876-1961). Dissertation University of Zurich, 1992.
  • Daniel Studer: Martha Cunz 1876-1961. A Swiss Art Nouveau artist in Munich. St. Gallen: Publishing Association St. Gallen, 1993.
  • Marina Widmer (Ed.): Blossom white to raven black - St. Gallen women - 200 portraits. Limmat, Zurich 2003, pp. 83–84.
  • Exhibition cat .: Temporary idyll. Painting holidays at Untersee 1880 to 1914 , Konstanz ( Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie ) 2009.
  • Herbert Eichhorn, Jacqueline Koller (ed.): Ways to Gabriele Münter and Käthe Kollwitz. Woodcuts by artists of Art Nouveau and Expressionism . Exhibition catalog. Spendhaus Reutlingen: October 26 to January 12, 2014, Museum Schloss Moyland: September 7 to November 30, 2014. Michael Imhoff Verlag, Petersberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86568-981-8 (with a short biography of Martha Cunz).
  • Daniel Studer: The fascination of color woodcut - The Japanese color woodcut as an art form of Art Nouveau. With a catalog of the woodcuts by Martha Cunz . Exhibition catalog for the Historical and Ethnological Museum St. Gallen: June 18, 2016 to March 5, 2017. VGS Verlagsgenossenschaft Verlag, St. Gallen 2016, ISBN 978-3-7291-1152-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Studer: Martha Cunz 1876-1961. A Swiss Art Nouveau artist in Munich. St. Gallen: Publishing Association St. Gallen, 1993
  2. ^ Rudolf Hanhart (Ed.): Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, catalog of the collection. St. Gallen 1987, pp. 245-249.
  3. ↑ 1906, portrait bust for Martha Cruz
personal data
SURNAME Cunz, Martha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss wood cutter
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Gallen
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 1961
Place of death St. Gallen