Ernst Fuchs could not be categorised simply; the charming Viennese art professor worked successfully as a painter, sculptor, graphic artist, stage designer, composer, author and philosopher. He left his mark everywhere and also assisted with the birth of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.
(...) Continue readingErnst Fuchs – Early love of art; Rubens as role model
Ernst Fuchs was born in Vienna Ottakring on 13 February 1930, the only child of Maximilian and Leopoldine Fuchs; his father was of Jewish descent, which is why his grandfather and father emigrated to the USA and Shanghai in 1938 after the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich. To protect little Ernst from anti-Semitic hostility, it was decided to baptise him according to the Roman Catholic rite in 1942. The 12-year-old Ernst Fuchs was allowed to choose his own baptismal name and chose Ernst Peter Paul, in honour of the painter Peter Paul Rubens, whom he admired at the time. Around the same time, his godmother's brother, the painter and restorer Alois Schiemann, taught him the basics of drawing and painting, and until the age of 15, he attended the St Anna School of Painting in Vienna, where Emmy Steinböck and Fritz Fröhlich taught him sculpture and painting.
Studies at the Vienna Academy; first solo exhibitions in Paris
After the war, Ernst Fuchs was finally able to take up his longed-for studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, which he had previously been denied for racist reasons. His first teacher was Robin Andersen, followed by Albert Paris Gütersloh. While still a student, he was allowed to hold his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1949, and soon afterwards, in 1950, he also moved to the French capital. Fuchs travelled through Europe and the USA for six years before taking an extended stay in 1957 at the Dormition Monastery on Mount Zion in Israel to study icon painting in depth. He finally returned to Vienna in 1962, where he founded the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism with former fellow students, of which he himself was to become the most important representative. The early years in particular were characterised by a strong surrealism, whilst mythical and religious symbols in particular appealed to Ernst Fuchs and permeated his work. Later, Fuchs increasingly turned to Mannerism.
Singer, architect, designer
Ernst Fuchs' artistic spectrum broadened over the years: he sang and recorded various albums, which, like the majority of his paintings, were inspired by mystical motifs, and he designed stage sets for such famous operas as Wagner's Parsifal and Lohengrin or Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. Fuchs also wrote philosophical treatises. He repeatedly collaborated with other artists, including the musicians Klaus Schulze and Chris Karrer, and cultivated long-standing friendships with greats such as Hundertwasser, Dalí and Breker. In the 1990s he designed various buildings in his own fantastic style with rich ornamentation and powerful colours. One curiosity in his long artistic biography is probably the design of a BMW 635 CSI, the ‘Fire Fox on a Hare Hunt’.
Ernst Fuchs was married four times, had many liaisons, and was father to sixteen children. He died in Vienna on 9 November 2015. The name Ernst Fuchs is associated with prizes and honours of all kinds as well as a rich artistic legacy of a musical, painterly and literary nature.
Ernst Fuchs - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
