Ernst Fuchs
Ernst Fuchs (born
February 13,
1930) is an Austrian
visionary
painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor,
architect, stage designer, composer, poet, singer
and one of the founders of the
Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.
He studied sculpture with
Emmy Steinbock (1943), attended the St. Anna Painting School where he
studied under Professor
Frohlich
(1944), and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (1945) where he
began his studies under Professor
Robin C. Anderson, later moving to the class of
Albert Paris von Gutersloh.
At the Academy he met
Arik Brauer,
Rudolf Hausner,
Wolfgang Hutter, and
Anton Lehmden, together with whom he later founded what has become
known as the
Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He was also a founding member of
the
Art-Club (1946), as well as the Hundsgruppe, set up in opposition to it in 1951, together with
Friedensreich Hundertwasser and
Arnulf Rainer.
His work of this period was influenced by the art of
Gustav Klimt and
Egon Schiele and then by
Max Pechstein,
Heinrich Campendonck, Edvard Munch,
Henry Moore and
Pablo Picasso. During this time, seeking to achieve the vivid lighting
effects achieved by such Old Masters as
Albrecht Altdorfer,
Albrecht Durer,
Matthias Grunewald and
Martin Schongauer, he revived and adopted the mischtechnik
(mixed technique) of painting. In the mischtechnik, egg
tempera is used to build up volume, and is then glazed with
oil paints mixed with resin,
producing a jewel-like effect.
Between 1950 and 1961, Fuchs lived mostly in Paris, and
made a number of journeys to the
United States and Israel.
His favourite reading material at the time was the sermons of
Meister Eckehart. He also studied the
symbolism of the alchemists
and read Jung's
Psychology of Alchemy. His favourite examples at the time were the
mannerists, especially
Jacques Callot, and he was also very much influenced by
Jan Van Eyck and
Jean Fouquet. In 1958 he founded the Galerie Fuchs-Fischoff in Vienna
to promote and support the younger painters of the
Fantastic Realism school. Together with
Friedensreich Hundertwasser and
Arnulf Rainer, he founded the
Pintorarium.
In 1956 he converted to
Roman Catholicism (his mother had had him baptized during the war in
order to save him from being sent to a concentration camp). In 1957 he
entered the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion where he began work on his
monumental Last Supper and devoted himself to producing small sized
paintings on religious themes such as Moses and the Burning Bush,
culminating in a commission to paint three altar paintings on parchment,
the cycle of the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary (1958-61), for the
Rosenkranzkirche in Hetzendorf, Vienna. He also deals with
contemporary issues in his masterpiece of this period, Psalm 69
(1949-60). (Fuchs, 1978, p. 53).
He returned to Vienna in 1961 and had a vision of what he called the
verschollener Stil (The Hidden Prime of Styles), the theory of which
he set forth in his inspired and grandiose book
Architectura Caelestis: Die Bilder des verschollenen Stils
(Salzburg, 1966). He also produced several important cycles of prints,
such as Unicorn (1950-52),
Samson
(1960-64), Esther (1964-7) and
Sphinx
(1966-7; all illustrated in Weis). In 1972 he acquired the derelict
Otto Wagner Villa in Hutteldorf, which he restored and transformed.
The villa was inaugurated as the
Ernst Fuchs Museum in 1988. From 1970 on, he embarked on numerous
sculptural projects such as Queen Esther (h. 2.63 m, 1972), located
at the entrance to the museum, and also mounted on the radiator cap of the
Cadillac at the entrance to the Dalí Museum in
Figueres,
Catalonia, Spain.
From 1974 he became involved in designing stage sets and costumes for
the operas of
Mozart and
Richard Wagner including
Die Zauberflöte,
Parsifal,
and
Lohengrin.
In 1993 Fuchs was given a retrospective exhibition at the
State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, one of the first Western
artists so honored.
Ernst Fuchs continues to inspire, and has many exponents and disciples
including H.R.
Giger,
Victor Safonkin, Mati Klarwein, Mark
Ryden,
Robert Venosa,
De Es Schwertberger, and his son
Michael Fuchs. A new generation of students includes
Andrew Gonzalez,
Amanda Sage and
Antonio Roybal.
From the Foreword to the publication " Metamorphosis":
"....Even when Fantastic art was strictly forbidden, such as during the
period when Russia was ruled by Brezhnev, knowledge of this style of art
continued to spread. One of my first students in 1952 in Paris was a very
remarkable, talented person, a dancer, painter and tattoo fetishist, Vali
Myers from Melbourne. We stayed in contact until her death in 2005. She
and Mati Klarwein were my first followers in Paris, so it gives me great
pleasure that another Australian admirer of my work should publish this
book. Some of the names included here are very familiar to me, or have
studied under my guidance and become excellent teachers themselves –
artists such as Brigid Marlin and Philip Rubinov Jacobson. This book will
carry a fundamental message to art lovers: Fantastic art has survived
despite all official attempts to quench its spirit." Ernst Fuchs 2006
