Ernst Fuchs (13 February 1930 – 9 November 2015) was an Austrian painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, architect, stage designer, composer, poet, and one of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. In 1972, he acquired the derelict Otto Wagner Villa in Hütteldorf, which he restored and transformed. The villa was inaugurated as the Ernst Fuchs Museum in 1988.
When he was 12 years old, he converted to Roman Catholicism (his mother had him baptized during the war in order to save him from being sent to a concentration camp).[2] 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 dealt with contemporary issues in his masterpiece of this period, Psalm 69 (1949–60). (Fuchs, 1978, p. 53).
Fuchs returned to Vienna in 1961 and had a vision of what he called the verschollener Stil (Hidden Prime of Styles), the theory of which he set forth in his 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 (1964–67) and Sphinx (1966–67; all illustrated in Weis). In 1972, he acquired the derelict Otto Wagner Villa in Hütteldorf, which he restored and transformed.[3] The villa was inaugurated as the Ernst Fuchs Museum in 1988.
From 1970 on, Fuchs 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.[7]
Design projects
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. He experimented with industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of the upscale Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Fuchs decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's Studio Linie.[8]
He was an Austrian monarchist, His son Emanuel revealed after his death: "My father advocated the reintroduction of the monarchy because he thought it was the better form of government."[10]
Fuchs died in Vienna's Sophienspital at the age of 85 on 9 November 2015.[11][1][3]
1977 – Fuchs über Ernst Fuchs: Bilder und Zeichnungen von 1945–1976, (R.P. Hartmann Paris) ISBN978-3-492-02283-5
2003 – Ernst Fuchs – Zeichnungen und Graphik aus der frühen Schaffensperiode – 1942 bis 1959. (Friedrich Haider) (Vienna: Löcker-Verlag) ISBN3-85409-387-X
2005 – Fantastic Art (Taschen) (Schurian, Prof. Dr. Walter) ISBN978-3-8228-2954-7 (English edition)
Ernst Fuchs: Zeichnungen und Graphiken, (Ketterer-Kunst, 1967)
H. Weis, ed.: Ernst Fuchs: Das graphische Werk (Vienna, 1967)
Ernst Fuchs: Homage à Böcklin, (Frankf./Main/Geneva/Vienna, 1971)
Ernst Fuchs: oeuvre gravé (Friburg: Musee d'art et d'histoire, 1975)
Fuchs über Ernst Fuchs: Bilder und Zeichnungen von 1945–1976, ed. R. P. Hartmann (Paris, 1977)
Ernst Fuchs: Arbeiten für der Hamburger Staatsoper, (Hamburg 1977)
R. P. Hartmann, ed.: Ernst Fuchs: Das graphische Werk, 1967–1980 (Munich, 1980)
Ernst Fuchs: Bildalchemie, (Osnabrück: Kulturgesichtliches Mus., c1981)
Gedichte von Jahwe (Munich: R. P. Hartmann, 1982)
U. Hotzy, Ernst Fuchs: die Werke aus den Jahren im Ausland (Salzburg, Univ., Diss., 1982)
Fuchs Graphik: Sydows Katalog einer idealen Sammlung, ed., Heinrich v. Sydow-Zirkwitz (Berlin: Studio 69, 1983)
Planeta Caelestis (Berlin and Munich, 1987)
Der Feuerfuchs, ed. R. P. Hartmann (Frankf./Main: Umschau Verlag, 1988)
Ernst Fuchs und Wein, (Landau/Pfalz: Verein Südliche Weinstrasse, 1995)
Der Maler mit den 16 Kindern, (Die Welt, 4 November 2001)
Further reading
Masters, Robert E.L. and Houston, Jean Psychedelic Art New York:1968 A Balance House book—printed by Grove Press, Inc. (contains a number of reproductions of Ernst Fuchs' works)
