Alfred Kubin | |
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| Born | Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (1877-04-10)10 April 1877 |
| Died | 20 August 1959(1959-08-20) (aged 82) Zwickledt nearWernstein am Inn, Austria |
| Education | Munich Academy |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Symbolism,Expressionism |
Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959) was an Austrian artist,printmaker, illustrator, and writer of a single novel,The Other Side. Kubin is considered an important representative ofSymbolism andExpressionism.
Kubin was born inBohemia in the town of Leitmeritz in theAustro-Hungarian Empire (nowLitoměřice). From 1892 to 1896, he was apprenticed to thelandscape photographer Alois Beer, although he learned little.[1] In 1896, he attempted suicide on his mother's grave, and his short stint in the Austrian army the following year ended with a nervous breakdown.[1]
In 1898, Kubin began a period of artistic study at a private academy run by the painter Ludwig Schmitt-Reutte, before enrolling at theMunich Academy in 1899, without finishing his studies there. In Munich, Kubin discovered the works ofOdilon Redon,Edvard Munch,James Ensor,Henry de Groux, andFélicien Rops. He was profoundly affected by the prints ofMax Klinger, and later recounted: "Here a new art was thrown open to me, which offered free play for the imaginative expression of every conceivable world of feeling. Before putting the engravings away I swore that I would dedicate my life to the creation of similar works".[2] Theaquatint technique used byKlinger andGoya influenced the style of his works of this period, which are mainly ink andwash drawings of fantastical, often macabre subjects.[1]
In 1902, Kubin exhibited at the prestigious Cassirer Gallery in Berlin.[3] Soon after, having met the publisher Hans von Weber in Munich in 1901, in 1903 the Hans von Weber Portfolio reproduced 15 of Kubin's works on paper as prints, which allowed a wider distribution of his work, and established his fame.[4] According to one contemporary critic, Kubin's work occupied "the darkroom of the modern soul".[3]
Kubin produced a small number of oil paintings in the years between 1902 and 1910, but thereafter his output consisted ofpen and inkdrawings,watercolors, andlithographs. In 1911, he became associated with theBlaue Reiter group, and exhibited with them in theGalerie Der Sturm in Berlin in 1913.[2] After that time, he lost contact with the artistic avant-garde.
Kubin is considered an important representative ofSymbolism andExpressionism and is noted for dark, spectral, symbolic fantasies, often assembled into thematic series of drawings. LikeOskar Kokoschka andAlbert Paris Gütersloh, Kubin had both artistic and literary talent. He illustrated works ofEdgar Allan Poe,E. T. A. Hoffmann, andFyodor Dostoevsky, among others. Kubin also illustrated the German fantasy magazineDer Orchideengarten.[5][6]
From 1906 until his death, he lived a withdrawn life in a Manor-House on a 12th-century estate inZwickledt, Upper Austria.[6] In 1938, at theAnschluss of Austria andNazi Germany, his work was declaredentartete Kunst or "degenerate art",[7] but he managed to continue working duringWorld War II.
Kubin's only novel wasThe Other Side (German:Die andere Seite) (1909), a fantastic novel set in an oppressive imaginary land.[8][9][10][11] The novel evokesabsurdity andclaustrophobia.[6][12] The illustrations for the book were originally intended forThe Golem byGustav Meyrink, but as that book was delayed, Kubin instead worked his illustrations into his own novel.[5]
The Other Side influenced a number of Austrian and German writers, notablyErnst Jünger,Thomas Mann,Franz Kafka,Joseph Roth,Hermann Kasack andChristoph Ransmayr.[13][14] It has achieved cult status, receiving praise fromJeff VanderMeer and other writers.[15][16]
In 2016, theStädtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich restituted, to the heirs ofMax and Hertha Morgenstern, 16 drawings by Kubin which had been sold under duress in Vienna in July 1938 as a result of Nazi persecution of Jews following Austria's Anschluss with Nazi Germany. Lenbachhaus had acquired them from Kurt Otte, a Kubin collector in Hamburg in 1971.[17]
The German Lost Art Foundation lists 24 artworks by Kubin in its database, many of which are from the Found-Object Reports from theStaatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden[18] which launched Nazi-era provenance research in 2008.[19]
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In 1903 he became famous overnight when the Weber Portfolio , a collection of facsimile prints of his drawings, was published.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)On 15 May 2019 sixteen drawings by Alfred Kubin were restituted by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus Munich to the heirs of Max and Hertha Morgenstern of Vienna with the assistance of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. The drawings were sold under duress in Vienna in July 1938 to Kurt Otte, a Kubin collector in Hamburg. In 1971 his archive and collection were sold to the Lenbachhaus in Munich where the sixteen drawings remained, with the Morgenstern stamp, and together with the documents of the 1938 sale, until their restitution in May 2019. Max Morgenstern was one of the earliest collectors of Kubin and the artist's first major patron.
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