Wolfgang von Websky
Wolfgang von Websky (born September 29, 1895 in Berlin ; † March 12, 1992 in Wangen im Allgäu ) was a German painter.
Life
Wolfgang was the son of the Prussian officer Egmont von Websky (* 1864) and his wife Olga, née Countess von Moltke-Hvitfeldt (* 1870).
Websky attended grammar school in Schweidnitz in Silesia , near his parents' residence on Gut Schwengfeld . He discovered his passion for painting at school. Immediately after graduating from high school, he took part in World War I and was seriously wounded. Following his artistic inclination, he devoted himself to training as a painter at the universities in Wroclaw and Berlin and traveled to Italy and France . There he received important artistic impulses. In 1939 he was drafted as a reserve officer. The Second World War ended for him only in 1950 after five years of Soviet captivity.
Artistic work
In order to understand Websky's work, one has to visualize the political upheavals, ruptures and losses of Germany's recent past. Wolfgang von Websky grew up in an officer's family with large estates in Prussian Silesia. In 1945 he had lost everything except for his family: property, home, artistic work, Prussia as an intellectual and political reason, Breslau and Berlin as his artistic centers. After his release from captivity, he uncompromisingly began a "second life" as a freelance artist in Wangen im Allgäu at the age of 57. He allowed the restless economic rise of the Federal Republic of Germany, which began around him, to pass by, as did the hectically changing fashions of the art business, which was largely dominated by non-representational painting. The conscious adherence to shape, color and form, to a basic aesthetic attitude, was not only a conservative tradition for him, but also an avowal and opposition to the world of abstract art, which seemed strange and soulless to him . The portrait achieved special significance in his work , whereby he dealt intensively with the people depicted.
In 1995, the city of Wangen im Allgäu acquired a representative selection of his work. This collection is now a permanent part of the former district office on the historic market square, the restored "Hinderofenhaus", which is open to the public and in which the city administration is located.
Web links
- Literature by and about Wolfgang von Websky in the catalog of the German National Library
- Homepage of the artist and catalog of works
Individual evidence
- ^ Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der Briefadeligen houses 1907. First volume, Justus Perthes, Gotha 1906, p. 807.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Websky, Wolfgang von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 29, 1895 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 12, 1992 |
| Place of death | Wangen in the Allgäu |