Fritz Wotruba
Encyclopedia
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n sculptor of Czecho-Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
descent. He was considered one of the most notable Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n 20th century sculptors
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
. In his work, he increasingly dissolves figurative components in favor of geometrical abstraction with the shape of the cube
Cube
In geometry, a cube is a three-dimensional solid object bounded by six square faces, facets or sides, with three meeting at each vertex. The cube can also be called a regular hexahedron and is one of the five Platonic solids. It is a special kind of square prism, of rectangular parallelepiped and...
as the basic form.
Life
Fritz Wotruba was born in 1907 as the youngest of eight children of Adolf Wotruba (who came from BohemiaBohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
to work as a tailor
Tailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
's assistant) and Maria Wotruba, née Kocsi (from Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, working as a maid
Maid
A maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...
), in Vienna. Adolf was an alcoholic & violent, often beating his sons & his wife - as described in the auto-biography of Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
Das Augenspiel, who befriended him in 1933, writing a very positive assessment of his work in 1954. His eldest brother was imprisoned for armed robbery & murder, and died in prison at Stein on the Danube. Fritz, the youngest, was spared from his father's wrath but was kept under close surveillance by the Police due to the Police records of his three elder brothers, & Canetti believed that his fascination with sculpting in stone was a form of psychological defence against his traumatic childhood.
Training & Early Commissions
From 1921 to 1925, he was trained as an engraver, as an apprentice in the engraving and die cutting workshop of Josef Schantin in Vienna.From February to summer 1926, he attended the arts and trades school of the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry and open evening courses on nude drawing.
In fall 1926, he enrolled in studies in sculpting at the arts and trades school.
Through the end of his studies, he was a student of Anton Hanak
Anton Hanak
Anton Hanak is among the best known Austrian sculptors of the early 20th century. Hanak was born in 1875 in Brno and studied between 1898 and 1904 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. From 1907 his studio was at Langenzersdorf near Vienna, today the site of the Hanak Museum...
, and received a stipend
Stipend
A stipend is a form of salary, such as for an internship or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from a wage or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work performed, instead it represents a payment that enables somebody to be exempt partly or wholly from waged or salaried...
by the Vienna Society of Modern Art, the Austrian Chamber of Labor and the municipality of Vienna - which was obtained for him by the ministrations of Anna Mahler
Anna Mahler
Anna Justine Mahler was an Austrian sculptor.-Early Life:Born in Vienna, she was the daughter of the composer Gustav Mahler and his wife Alma Schindler. They nicknamed her 'Gucki' on account of her big blue eyes...
, who was his pupil & lover.
In 1933, he had a studio under the Stadtbahn
Stadtbahn
A ' is a tramway or light railway that includes segments built to rapid transit standards, usually as part of a process of conversion to a metro railway, mainly by the building of tunnels in the central city area....
, or Metro Rail Tracks. Canetti :"..it consisted of two big vaults supporting the Stadtbahn trestle; in one stood figures that would have got in his way while he was working in the other. When the weather wasn't too bad, he liked best to work in the open..." He continued to live at home with his widowed mother & his youngest sister in their old home in 31 Florianigasse, where he had been born, until he escaped after the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
& Hitler's dictatorship over Austria to Switzerland for the duration of the war.
Work
His probably greatest work, on which he worked until his death, was the planning of the Church "of the Holy Trinity" in Mauer, ViennaMauer, Vienna
Mauer is a former village of Lower Austria that since 1938 has been part of Vienna. Today it is part of the 23rd District of Vienna, Liesing. Its name literally means "wall".- History :...
, better known as Wotruba Church
Wotruba Church
The Kirche Zur Heiligsten Dreifaltigkeit in Vienna, better known as the Wotruba Church, is located on the Sankt Georgenberg in Mauer in Liesing, the 23rd District of Vienna...
. He did not live to see the completion of the church in 1976.
Many of his statues can be seen in public parks in Vienna. The Lying Adolescent is located in an exhibition in the Albertina
Albertina, Vienna
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings...
. He escaped to Switzerland upon Hitler's ascent to power. A number of his sculptures were either lost or destroyed during the Second World War.
Wotruba is buried on the Zentralfriedhof
Zentralfriedhof
The Zentralfriedhof is one of the largest cemeteries in the world, largest by number of interred in Europe and most famous cemetery among Vienna's nearly 50 cemeteries.-Name and location:...
(Central Cemetery) in Vienna, Austria.
External links
- Fritz Wotruba Society
- http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.w/w960755.htm;internal&action=_setlanguage.action?LANGUAGE=enFritz Wotruba in aeiou EncyclopediaAeiou EncyclopediaAEIOU is a free online collection of reference works in both German and English about Austria-related topics.-Background:...
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