Wilhelm Volz (artist)

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Wilhelm Volz (born December 8, 1855 in Karlsruhe , † July 7, 1901 in Munich ) was a German painter and graphic artist whose work can be classified between historicism and art nouveau style . He is not to be confused with Wilhelm August Volz (* 1877 Mannheim; † 1926 in Karlsruhe), who also studied at the Grand Ducal Baden Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe .

Life

Wilhelm Volz: Amor, opening the door. Oil on canvas on cardboard, 32.5 × 20 cm, without year.

Wilhelm Volz was born in Karlsruhe as the son of Adolph Otto Volz, medical advisor and his wife Julie, née Baumgärtner (family ties to the Mendelssohn dynasty). There he attended the Lyceum from 1865 to 1875 and became friends with the later writer Heinrich Wilhelm Vierordt . Volz's artistic and musical talent was shown early on.

He was released from military service due to a hip problem that had existed since birth. He studied from 1875 to 1881 at the Grand Ducal Baden Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe with Karl Gussow and Ferdinand Keller . Closer connections developed to his classmates Ludwig von Hofmann , Edmund Kanoldt , Max Klinger and Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht . Ferdinand Keller involved him as an illustrator in the complete edition of Schiller's works, which appeared in Stuttgart and Leipzig in 1877/1878.

In 1878 Volz stayed in southern Germany, mainly on Lake Constance , and briefly in Switzerland . In 1882 he traveled to Baden-Baden and Italy . This was followed by studies at the Académie Julian in Paris with Jules-Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger until 1883 . From 1886 to 1888, the artist took on a teaching position at the Grand Ducal Baden Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe.

In 1888/1889 Volz moved to Munich . Around 1890 Volz joined the Munich artist society Allotria . He made friends with the sculptor Josef Flossmann , the painters Wilhelm Dürr the Elder. J. , Peter Halm , Arthur Langhammer , Wilhelm Ludwig Lehmann , Carl Theodor Meyer-Basel and the architect Theodor Fischer . “Only now did I take a long look at all the wealth of pictures and studies and drafts on easels, on the wall, on the floor - it sounded like fine music from everywhere, there was a wealth of beauty and inwardness, like me had never seen anything in a studio. "

In 1892 he became a member of the " Munich Secession ". Wilhelm Volz was a corresponding member of the Secessions founded in Vienna and Berlin in 1897 and 1898 .

Wilhelm Volz: Angels raising a sick person. Fresco on the facade of the clinic in Nussbaumstrasse, Munich, 1896.

From the 1890s onwards, Volz spent the summer months with his Munich artist friends on the Bodensee island of Reichenau . In 1891 he traveled to Italy with Gustav Schönleber and Paul von Ravenstein . In 1896 Volz won the competition to paint the funeral hall of the Munich East Cemetery , but the mural was not executed. In the same year a mural was created for the facade of the clinic in Nussbaumstrasse, Munich.

Wilhelm Volz: Salome. Color lithograph, 48 × 32 cm, published in the magazine "Pan" in 1896 and 1898.
Wilhelm Volz: Inside title to "Mopsus - A Faunskomödia in two lifts", 1898.
Wilhelm Volz: sea creatures. Color lithograph, 22.6 × 36.1 cm, no year.

Since 1896 he has created illustrations for the magazines " Pan " and " Jugend " . In 1898 the faun comedy "Mopsus", composed and illustrated by Volz, was published by JA Pecht in Konstanz. “Whether his hobby for the rough jokes of the fauns led him particularly in this, or whether they first came to life for him through the comedy, I no longer know, at least it was the poetry that led him to the recurring images, to the invention of his delicious illustrations and enthusiastic about the composition of the Faunskomedy. ”In 1900, the“ Neue Börse ”café in Munich was painted under the commissioner Friedrich von Thiersch . His last picture, “Das Tanzlegendchen”, based on Gottfried Keller 's novella of the same name , remained unfinished.

Work and style

Wilhelm Volz's work is stylistically located between historicism , symbolism and Art Nouveau and impresses with its technical versatility. His oeuvre includes portraits, landscapes, religious paintings, wall paintings for churches and secular buildings, books and magazines. The range of topics in his pictures is also diverse. In addition to religious motifs, Wilhelm Volz was particularly interested in narrative representations, that is, literary, fairytale, mythological and humorous subjects. Another of his other important sources of inspiration was music.

“Wilhelm Volz's artistic and musical dual talent made him an artist-poet in a twofold sense, a sensitive nature who probably suspected he was born late at the end of the 19th century, suffering from the epigonal. But Volz was also a quiet fighter whose strongest weapon was perhaps his unshakable humor, which was also reflected in his work and which is precisely why it makes it so unique. "

estate

A large part of Wilhelm Volz's artistic estate is in the collection of the Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz , including numerous sketches and studies, but also prints and oil paintings, as well as a few letters and a completely preserved copy of the "Mopsus". Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht acquired the bundle for the collection from Lina Volz, the artist's sister, in 1943.

Selection of works

  • 1877/1878 Illustrations for: Schiller's works, Eduard Hallberger Verlag, Stuttgart and Leipzig
  • 1882 to 1886 illustrations for: Goethe's works, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich, (formerly Eduard Hallberger Verlag)
  • 1888 painting “Die Heilige Elisabeth”, Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz
  • 1888 painting, "Maria im Grünen", Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz, deposit at Kunstverein Konstanz
  • 1889/1890 painting of the outer facade of the preserved villa of artist colleague Gustav Schönleber in Karlsruhe, Jahnstraße 18.
  • 1890 Illustrations for: Wilhelm Jensen, "The Black Forest", H. Reuther's Verlagbuchhandlung, Berlin
  • 1891 Illustrations for: William Shakespeare "A Midsummer Night's Dream", CF Amelangs Verlag, Leipzig
  • 1892 “Children's Sermon in St. Aracoeli (Christmas in Rome)”, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
  • 1893 “The Holy Cäcilia”, State Art Gallery Karlsruhe
  • Since 1896 illustrations for the magazines "Pan" and "Jugend", Berlin and Munich
  • 1896 "Angels raising a sick person", fresco on the facade of the clinic in Nussbaumstrasse, Munich
  • 1898 Illustrations for: "Mopsus - A Faunskomödia in two acts", Verlag JA Pecht, Konstanz
  • undated (around 1898), “Faunskonzert”, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau, Munich
  • 1900 Large-format oil studies "Grave Angel" and "Entombment" for the later painting "Two Angels at the Grave of Christ", Neue Pinakothek , Munich
  • 1900 Painting of the “Neue Börse” café, Munich, commissioned by Friedrich von Thiersch
  • 1901 painted pulpit, Erlöserkirche, Munich
  • 1901 “Nymphe am Weiher”, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
  • 1899/1900 triptych (unfinished) “Das Tanzlegendchen”, based on the novella by Gottfried Keller. Acquired in 1901 by the Gottfried Keller Foundation, today as a deposit at the Kunsthaus Zürich

Prices

  • 1876/1877 Prize of the Art School, Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe
  • 1889 medal for the painting, "Maria im Grünen", international art exhibition in the Glaspalast in Munich
  • 1893 medal for the painting “Maria im Grünen”, World Exhibition, Chicago

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1888 “III. International Exhibition “in the Glaspalast in Munich
  • 1889 “International Annual Exhibition” in the Glaspalast in Munich
  • 1890 “International Annual Exhibition” in the Glaspalast in Munich
  • 1892 “International Annual Exhibition” in the Glaspalast in Munich
  • 1893 World's Fair in Chicago;
    • “Great International Art Exhibition” in Berlin;
    • Opening exhibition of the Munich Secession
  • 1894 Summer exhibition of the Secession
  • 1895 "International Art Exhibition" of the Association of Visual Artists Munich;
    • "Great Berlin Art Exhibition"
  • 1897 "Great Berlin Art Exhibition"
  • 1899 Exhibition at the Munich Secession
  • 1902 “Karlsruhe Jubilee Art Exhibition” (posthumous);
    • Estate exhibition in Basel;
    • Winter exhibition of the Munich Secession;
    • Schulte's art salon in Berlin
  • 1909 Exhibition at the Munich Secession
  • 1912 "Great Art Exhibition" in Dresden
  • 1921 retrospective at the Kunsthaus Sebald, Karlsruhe
  • 2015 "Wilhelm Volz 1855 - 1901. Fairy Tales, Myths & Music". Exhibition on the occasion of his 160th birthday in the Städtische Wessenberg-Galerie Konstanz

Picture gallery

  • Saint Elizabeth (1888 at the latest)

  • Maria (1889 at the latest)

  • Elevation and Dance of the Nymphs (lithograph, around 1898)

  • Spectacled snake (lithograph, date unknown)

  • Salome (draft, date unknown)

literature

  • Georg Habich, Wilhelm Volz, in: Kunst und Handwerk, vol. 52, issue 4, 1901–1902.
  • Unknown author, Wilhelm Volz, in: The art for all. Painting, sculpture, graphics, architecture. Vol. XVII, issue 18, 1902.
  • Alfred Georg Hartmann, Wilhelm Volz, in: Badische Biographien. V. Part 1891–1901, ed. v. Friedrich von Weech and Albert Krieger, Vol. I, Heidelberg 1906.
  • Heinrich Vierordt, Memories of Wilhelm Volz the Elder (1855–1901), in: The pyramid. Weekly on the Karlsruher Tagblatt, 13th year, No. 40, 5th October 1924.
  • Wilhelm Lehmann, Memories of Wilhelm Volz (From the years 1897–1901), in: The pyramid. Weekly for the Karlsruher Tagblatt, 14th year, No. 10, 8th March 1925.
  • General lexicon of visual artists from antiquity to the present, vol. 34, c. Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, ed. v. Hans Vollmer, Leipzig 1926.
  • Edith Ammann: The graphic work of Wilhelm Volz. Edition 4 of the publications of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 1944.
  • Joseph August Beringer: Baden Painting 1770–1920, 2nd edition, Karlsruhe 1979.
  • Exhibition cat .: Temporary idyll. Painting holidays at Untersee 1880 to 1914, Konstanz ( Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie ) 2009.
  • Exhibition cat .: Wilhelm Volz (1855–1901). Märchen, Mythos & Musik , Konstanz ( Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie ) 2015.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Lehmann, Memories of Wilhelm Volz (from the years 1897–1901), quoted again in: Die Pyramid. Wochenschrift zum Karlsruher Tagblatt, Vol. 14, No. 10, March 8, 1925, pp. 71–74, p. 72. Wilhelm Volz (1855–1901). Fairy tales, myths & music, exhibition catalog, Konstanz (Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie) 2015, p. 16
  2. ↑ Heinrich Schmidt-Pecht, memories from a long life in the hometown of Konstanz, masch. Typescript, vol. 1, Konstanz, no year (1939), chapter IX, p. 3 f. Quoted again in: Wilhelm Volz (1855–1901). Fairy tales, myths & music, exhibition catalog, Konstanz (Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie) 2015, p. 59
  3. ^ Wilhelm Volz (1855-1901). Märchen, Mythos & Musik, exhibition catalog, Konstanz (Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie) 2015, pp. 32–33, 42
  4. ^ Wilhelm Volz (1855-1901). Märchen, Mythos & Musik, exhibition catalog, Konstanz (Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie) 2015, p. 11 ff., P. 51
  5. ^ Wilhelm Volz (1855-1901). Fairy tales, myths & music, exhibition catalog, Konstanz (Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie) 2015, p. 42
  6. ^ Wilhelm Volz (1855-1901). Fairy tales, myths & music, exhibition catalog, Konstanz (Städt. Wessenberg-Galerie) 2015, p. 42
personal data
SURNAME Volz, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter between historicism and art nouveau
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Karlsruhe
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1901
Place of death Munich