Franz von Stuck - Caricatures for the Fliegende Blätter; the turn to symbolism
Franz von Stuck was born on 23rd February 1863 in Tettenweis, Lower Bavaria. Although an artistic education was not an obvious choice for Stuck as the son of a village miller, he attended the Royal School of Arts and Crafts in Munich from 1878 and then the Academy of Fine Arts on the recommendation of Ferdinand Barth. Franz von Stuck, then known simply as Franz Stuck, enjoyed his first successes as a draughtsman during his school and student days with various illustrations for magazines and books. He attracted national attention in 1882 with a portfolio for the Viennese publishing house Gerlach & Schenk, on which he had worked with Gustav Klimt and Max Klinger, and became an established figure in Munich as a sharp-witted caricaturist for the Fliegende Blätter. The Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin exerted a strong influence on Stuck’s work, in particular his tendency towards Symbolism, which also characterised the painting Guardians of Paradise, earning him a gold medal at an exhibition in Munich's Glaspalast in 1889.
Founding of the Munich Secession; teacher of Kandinsky and Klee
Franz von Stuck joined forces with Wilhelm Trübner and other artists to form the Munich Secession in 1892 in order to protest against the teachings of Munich's ‘prince of painters’, Franz von Lenbach. After the first successful joint exhibitions, Franz von Stuck presented his famous work The Sin, in which he framed a naked woman with a large snake in expressive symbolic language. Revealed in 1893, the painting gave rise to a whole series of attempts at interpretation, but the artist himself never gave any indication of his actual intention. In addition to eroticism, it was above all mythology that preoccupied Stuck and provided him with numerous ideas. His bronze sculpture of a Fighting Amazon stood for a time in Carinhall, the estate of the National Socialist Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, and can be seen today in Eberswalde. From 1895, he held a professorship at the academy and taught such illustrious names as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Heinrich Strieffler, Georges Kars, Josef Hengge and Paul Stollreither.
Striving for the Gesamtkunstwerk; elevation to nobility
Franz von Stuck strove for the Gesamtkunstwerk, a life that was to be completely permeated and framed by art. To this end, partly at the suggestion of his wife Mary Lindpaintner, he had a magnificent villa built in Munich's Prinzregentenstrasse by the construction company Heilmann & Littmann, which he filled with furniture and sculptures of his own creation. The Technical University of Munich honoured him with an honorary doctorate for this achievement. After the artist's death, the villa was converted into a museum and reopened in 2005 after 13 years of restoration. In 1906, Prince Regent Leopold awarded him the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown in recognition of his life's work and elevated him to the personal nobility. After the First World War, Franz von Stuck's fame faded, his style contradicting the modern art trends then desired. Nevertheless, he remained true to his working method, even though he turned increasingly to sculpture in his final years.
Franz von Stuck died on 30th August 1928 in Munich. His stepson Otto Lindpaintner later distinguished himself as an aviation pioneer and racing driver.
Franz von Stuck - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
