Victor Mezger the Elder

Victor Mezger the Elder Ä. (* June 23, 1866 in Biberach an der Riss ; † December 21, 1936 in Überlingen ) was an artist, restorer and local researcher who worked in Überlingen.

Live and act

Mezger was the son of a Württemberg railway official. He attended elementary school in Schrozberg , Latin schools in Lorch , Biberach and Waldsee and the secondary school in Villingen . After an apprenticeship with a decorative painter and studies at the arts and crafts schools in Stuttgart and Nuremberg , he joined the workshop of the church and history painter Franz Xaver Kolb in Ellwangen in 1885 , which he took over after Kolb's death in 1889. In 1897 Victor Mezger acquired a share in the “Atelier for Church Art” in Überlingen, which had been founded by Josef Eberle in 1871 and where his younger brother Eugen Mezger worked as a sculptor. From then on, the studio was called “Eberlesche Werkstätte for ecclesiastical art by Gebr. Mezger Überlingen a / S. To bathe"; from 1903 until Eugen Mezger's death in 1908 there was a branch in Karlsruhe . The main business consisted of the historicizing new creation of entire church interiors, especially after late Gothic models. Yvonne Herzig concludes her catalog raisonné with the verdict, "The works of the Mezger brothers can undoubtedly be counted among the best examples of [the] southern German neo-Gothic".

Mezger established his reputation as a restorer in 1899 by uncovering the murals in the pre-Romanesque chapel of St. Sylvester in Goldbach near Überlingen. This was followed by the uncovering and restoration of the Romanesque monumental painting in the apse of the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Niederzell on the island of Reichenau between 1900 and 1910 .

The handling of historical building fabric aroused Victor Mezger's interest in history, especially the history of the imperial city of Überlingen. After the city of Überlingen had acquired the Reichlin-von-Meldegg-Haus and made it the location of the city museum, Mezger designed the exhibition of the city collection he looked after in 1913. In addition, Mezger managed the Überlingen city archive, from whose sources he wrote a large number of mostly very short articles. His last major essay "The Fastnacht in Überlingen", published in 1933 in the writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , proves his ability to judge: By tracing the late medieval and early modern Überlingen carnival customs to the church's fasting law, he set himself apart from the contemporary Folklore, which the Carnival attempted to trace back to pre-Christian customs of the Celts or Teutons. At the same time, he paid tribute to the work of the former chief bailiff of the Überlingen district office , Hermann Levinger , for the carnival; Levinger was a Jewish administrative officer who converted to Protestantism and was later driven to suicide by the National Socialists. Victor Mezger has been a member of the board of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings since 1918 , first as second secretary, and from 1920 to 1936 as president. The club suffered a crisis during this time; it lost half of its members and had to sell its collection, the Bodensee Museum , to the city of Friedrichshafen . Mezger opposed this and achieved that in the winter of 1929/30 the association financially and organizationally supported the innovative and at that time widely regarded archaeological research of the Sipplingen pile building station by the Tübingen prehistorian Hans Reinerth . From 1933 on, the Vorarlberg regional archivist Viktor Kleiner took over part of Mezger's duties as club president because he had suffered a stroke from the consequences of which he could no longer fully recover. Shortly before his death, Victor Mezger resigned from the presidency and was made honorary president.

In 1926 Victor Mezger handed over his art workshop to his eldest son, Victor Mezger the Elder. J. (1895–1989), who continued it as a pure restoration workshop after the Second World War. The notarial deletion took place in 1987. Victor Mezger had been married to Maria Köberle from Singen (Hohentwiel) since 1892 . The couple had three sons and a daughter.

Victor-Mezger-Straße in Überlingen is named after him.

literature

Yvonne Herzig: South German sacred sculpture in historicism. The Eberle'sche art workshop Gebr. Mezger. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2001, ISBN 3-932526-88-0 .
Yvonne Herzig: New Gothic in Überlingen. "Eberlesche art workshop by the Mezger brothers Überlingen a./See" . In: Michael Brunner, Marion Harder-Merkelbach (ed.): 1100 years of art and architecture in Überlingen (850–1950). Special exhibition, Städtische Galerie Überlingen, July 5 to November 20, 2005. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2005, ISBN 3-86568-032-1 , pp. 201–208.
Victor Mezger the Elder J .: Viktor [sic] Mezger - the restorer and native of Lake Constance. In: Badische Heimat. Volume 46, 1966, 1/2, pp. 107-109. Rombach, Freiburg i. Br. 1966, ISSN 0930-7001 .
Alfons Semler: Victor Mezger, Honorary President of the Association for the History of Lake Constance. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 63, 1936, p. 5 f. [1]

Individual evidence

↑ Yvonne Herzig: South German sacred sculpture in historicism. The Eberle'sche art workshop Gebr. Mezger. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2001, ISBN 3-932526-88-0 , p. 52.
^ Victor Mezger: The Carnival in Überlingen. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 60, 1932/33, pp. 21-47. Digitized
↑ Harald Derschka : The association for the history of Lake Constance and its surroundings. A look back at one hundred and fifty years of club history 1868–2018. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 136, 2018, pp. 1–302, especially pp. 118–122, p. 151.
^ Guntram Brummer: Victor Mezger †. November 20, 1895 - September 20, 1989. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 108, 1990, pp. IX-XII. Digitized
↑ Yvonne Herzig: South German sacred sculpture in historicism. The Eberle'sche art workshop Gebr. Mezger. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2001, ISBN 3-932526-88-0 , p. 53.
^ Eugen Schnering: Überlingen - city history in street names . 2nd unchanged edition. Verlag der Gesellschaft der Kunstfreunde Überlingen eV, Überlingen 1998, p. 178-181 .

personal data
SURNAME	Mezger, Victor the Elder
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Mezger, Victor d. Ä.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German artist, restorer and local researcher
DATE OF BIRTH	June 23, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH	Biberach an der Riss
DATE OF DEATH	December 21, 1936
Place of death	Überlingen

[1] Yvonne Herzig: South German sacred sculpture in historicism. The Eberle'sche art workshop Gebr. Mezger. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2001, ISBN 3-932526-88-0 , p. 52.

[2] Victor Mezger: The Carnival in Überlingen. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 60, 1932/33, pp. 21-47. Digitized

[3] Harald Derschka : The association for the history of Lake Constance and its surroundings. A look back at one hundred and fifty years of club history 1868–2018. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 136, 2018, pp. 1–302, especially pp. 118–122, p. 151.

[4] Guntram Brummer: Victor Mezger †. November 20, 1895 - September 20, 1989. In: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings. Volume 108, 1990, pp. IX-XII. Digitized

[5] Yvonne Herzig: South German sacred sculpture in historicism. The Eberle'sche art workshop Gebr. Mezger. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2001, ISBN 3-932526-88-0 , p. 53.

[6] Eugen Schnering: Überlingen - city history in street names . 2nd unchanged edition. Verlag der Gesellschaft der Kunstfreunde Überlingen eV, Überlingen 1998, p. 178-181 .