Adam Friedrich Oeser (17 February 1717 inPressburg – 18 March 1799 inLeipzig) was a Germanetcher, painter and sculptor.
Oeser worked and studied in Pressburg (student ofGeorg Raphael Donner in sculpture) andVienna at the Vienna Academy (student ofJacob van Schuppen and Daniel Grau in painting). He went toDresden in Saxony in 1739, where he studied withMengs andDietrich,[1] and created portraits and scenes for the Royal Opera, and mural paintings inSchloss Hubertusburg (1749). In 1756 CountHeinrich von Bünau commissioned him to decorate the newly builtSchloss Dahlen.
Oeser moved to Leipzig in 1759. Appointed director of the newly founded Academy there in 1764, he zealously opposedmannerism in art. He was a stout champion ofWinckelmann's advocacy of reform on antique lines. He also befriended Winckelmann, who lived with him and his family in 1754/55.[2]
Oeser's chief importance was as a teacher. He was the drawing teacher ofJohann Wolfgang Goethe, with whom he kept up friendly relations afterwards atWeimar. Besides a number of decorative works, mostly ceilings, he painted mythological and religious canvases and portraits, among the best being: "The Artist's Children" (1766, Dresden Gallery), "Marriage at Cana" (1777) and four others in Leipzig Museum, and "The Painter's Studio" (Weimar Museum). His best effort in sculpture is the monument of ElectorFrederick Augustus (1780) on the Königsplatz in Leipzig, which he created together with his student and architectJohann Carl Friedrich Dauthe. Today, it is in the garden of theGohlis Palace in Leipzig. In the ballroom inside the palace is the ceiling painting “Life ofPsyche” (1779) by Oeser.
In 1766 Oeser became a member of the Masonic LodgeMinerva zu den drei Palmen, Leipzig. In 1776 he became a member of theBalduin Lodge, Leipzig.
He resided in Germany. Among his pupils wasSophie Dinglinger.[3]
