Adolf Zdrazila

The Art Nouveau painter and printmaker Adolf Zdrazila (sometimes spelled Zdrasila) was born in 1868 in Poruba, in what is now the Moravian-Silesian district of the Czech Republic, but was then part of Austria-Hungary. Zdrazila was ethnically Hungarian but culturally Austrian. Zdrazila's father was a tailor who used to go to Italy for work, and it was seeing the art treasures of Italy that awoke a love of art in the young Adolf. Adolf Zdrazila studied at the fine art academies of Vienna (under Lichtenfels) and Karlsruhe (under Leopold von Kalckreuth, Kallmorgen, and Schönleber). After that he spent some time in Paris, Brussels and Holland, before returning to Silesia. Here he benefited from the patronage of his friend Edmund Wilhelm Braun, director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Troppau, who commissioned various decorative schemes. Zdrazila exhibited at the Troppauer Museum in 1897 and in 1902, in which year he also showed at the Salon Pisko in Vienna. Zdrazila's first prints were etchings, but he soon devoted himself to wood engraving, in both black-and-white and colour. He made his first colour wood engraving in 1900; his second was Zur Zeit der Heckenrosen sollt' ich seiner harren!, reproduced below. His colour wood engravings show the influence of Japanese prints. His black-and-white engraving Rübezahl depicts a trickster mountain spirit from Silesian folklore; Zdrazila planned a whole series of illustrations to the folktales about Rübezahl. Other typical motifs in the art of Adolf Zdrazila are pretty girls in romantic outdoor settings (see another charming one here), winter landscapes, and cottage interiors. There are works by Zdrazila in the Troppau Museum, in the Municipal Museum Vienna, and in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Adolf Zdrazila died in Troppau in 1942.

Adolf Zdrasila, Rübezahl

Wood engraving, 1908

Adolf Zdrasila, Zur Zeit der Heckenrosen sollt' ich seiner harren!

Wood engraving, c.1900

Adolf Zdrasila, Landscape with bridge

Wood engraving, 1904

Adolf Zdrasila, Winter

Wood engraving, 1904

Online journals

A big thank you to Will at art and weird literature blog A Journey Round My Skull for his kind post about Adventures in the Print Trade, which has resulted in a huge increase in readers. Yesterday 753 people visited this blog, as opposed to 320 a week ago. So welcome to all my readers, new and old. I appreciate your comments, additions, and corrections.

Albert Haueisen (German, 1872-1954)

Kirchgang 

Woodcut, 1904

I began blogging in October 2007, as a means—as it says on the masthead—of sharing my excitement and discoveries in the world of prints. Unless otherwise stated, all the images I post are from original prints that are physically in my possession—the fruits of an obsessive collecting instinct that has led me to become a part-time print dealer, over at my website Idbury Prints.

Joan Galle (Flemish, 1600-1676) after Marten de Vos (Flemish, 1532-1603)

Has ducunt choreas...

Engraving, re-strike 1869

Despite its title (a nod to Dylan Thomas’s Adventures in the Skin Trade), this blog is not about the commercial side of the print world, but about the pleasure of discovery. Because I don’t have an art history background, each new print I acquire sends me on a fresh adventure. Researching the artists and their work is something I find endlessly stimulating.

Georg Jahn (German, 1869-1941)

Mädchenkopf

Engraving, 1904

I began with the idea of confining myself to French prints 1870-1970. “from Impressionism to Pop Art”. But just as categories such as Impressionism and Pop Art have proved porous and unstable, so too I have found myself extending the range of prints I acquire and write about; the images in this post are just a few recent acquisitions. The rate of posting can be sporadic, but I try to make each post accurate, informative, and interesting.

Raoul Dufy (French, 1877-1953)

Le Dauphin

Woodcut, 1911

“Blog” must be about the ugliest word in the English language, but blogging as a phenomenon fascinates me. In the right hands, the blog is developing into a new art form, and one that is surprisingly resistant to being converted into existing forms, such as the book.

Lucien Pissarro (French/British, 1863-1944)

Little May

Woodcut, c.1890

Anyway, as a nod of thanks to supporters of this blog such as Will at A Journey Round My Skull and PK at the mighty Bibliodyssey (the first person ever to link to me), here’s a list of six of my favourite blogs:

Stefan Filipkiewicz (Polish, 1879-1944)

Dorfkirche

Woodcut, 1908

Clive’s Art and the Aesthete may be the only blog out there by someone even more obsessed with prints and printmakers than I am.

Richard Lux (German, 1877-1939)

Strasse in Stein a. d. Donau

Etching, 1914

Jane Librizzi has been a friend of this blog from the start. She sheds the highly-sensitive light of her Blue Lantern onto a wide range of forgotten and overlooked artists.

Norman Janes (English, 1892-1980)

Coke Ovens

Wood engraving, 1935

Philip Wilkinson’s fascinating English Buildings inspired me to start this blog. It’s not just about architecture, but history and landscape, and the quirky details that bring all three of these subjects to life.

Andreas Gering (German, 1874-1956)

Krieg

Lithograph, 1916

What can I say about Roxana’s Floating Bridge of Dreams, except that it lives up to its beautiful title? Roxana has the uncanny ability to seemingly photograph spacetime, or to strip away everything from an image but the fading pulse of an emotion.

Joseph Crawhall (English, 1821-1896)

I'll not resolve one thing or other, until I've first consulted Mother

Woodcut, 1889

Spitalfields Life by the gentle author is my latest discovery—an utterly addictive daily slice of East End cultural and social history, and its vibrant contemporary life.

Ludwig Michalek (Austrian, 1859-1942)

Bildnis des Schriftsellers Karl M. Kuzmany

Etching, 1912

And last but not least, of all the literature blogs I have come across, I think the best is Wuthering Expectations, from that inspired title through to the daft challenges that Amateur Reader sets himself and his readers.

The wanderer

The Dutch graphic artist Wijnand Otto Jan van Nieuwenkamp was born in Amsterdam in 1874. He is celebrated particularly for his scenes in Java, Bali, and Lombok, which show a subtle sensitivity to Indonesian culture. 

Wijnand van Nieuwenkamp, Arabische Viertel in Semarang auf Java

Etching, pre-1915

Having first travelled to Indonesia in 1898, W.O.J. van Nieuwenkamp made repeated visits to the area, including long trips to Bali in 1904, 1906-7, 1917-19, 1935 and 1937. Travelling on foot, on horseback, and by bike, Wijnand van Nieuwenkamp made an important record of Balinese art in drawings and prints, and books such as Bali en Lombok (1906-1910); he also gathered together a huge collection of Indonesian art and artefacts. 

Wijnand van Nieuwenkamp, Rhenen

Woodcut, 1911

Van Nieuwenkamp also depicted European landscapes, as in these three woodcuts of Rhenen in the Netherlands, Le Puy-en-Velay in southern France, and Mechelen in Belgium (Mecheln is the German spelling). In these European scenes he allows himself an Expressionist vigour (noticeable in the skies of Rhenen, or the waters of Mechelen), whereas the Indonesian subjects tend to be marked by a restrained realism and a respect for the aesthetic values of the local culture.

Wijnand van Nieuwenkamp, Le Puy in Velay (Südfrankreich)

Woodcut, pre-1915

Wijnand van Nieuwenkamp, Brücke in Mecheln

Woodcut, 1899

Although nicknamed "the Wanderer", after the name of his houseboat De Zwerver, Wijnand Otto Jan van Nieuwenkamp settled in the 1920s in the Villa Nieuwenkamp in Fiesole, just outside Florence, where he died in 1950.

Entranced by water

The author of the two colour woodcuts in this post was Carl Theodor Thiemann (1881-1966). Thiemann produced paintings, etchings, and lithographs as well as woodcuts, but it is almost entirely as a woodcut artist that he is remembered. My two are typical in the way they luxuriate in the idea of light and form reflected off water.

Carl Thiemann, Schwan

Woodcut, 1908

Carl Thiemann, Bach im Winter

Woodcut, 1915

Carl Thiemann (sometimes known as Karl Thiemann) was born in Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), in Western Bohemia. He studied at the Prague Academy, and also under Franz Thiele. He died in Deutenhofen in Bavaria.

High wire act

These high wire performers walking a tightrope across a Bavarian town square are perhaps emblematic of the risky lot of all artists. The public is enjoying the show in complete indifference to the man plunging from the rope on the right, or the two corpses being carried away by undertakers in top hat and tails at the bottom left... and yet still the artists doggedly climb the ladder to try their luck.

 Adolf Schinnerer, Die Künstler

Etching, 1927

The etching, printed on Japan paper by Heinrich Wetteroth, Munich, and hand-signed by the artist, comes from the edition of 250 published in Jahresmappe der Freunde Graphischer Künst, Nuremberg 1927. Adolf Ferdinand Schinnerer was born in 1876 in Schwarzenbach. Schinnerer studied at the Karlsruhe Academy under Ludwig Schmid-Reutte, Walter Conz, and Wilhelm Trübner; he won the Prix de Rome in 1909. In 1929 Adolf Schinnerer was one of those selected for inclusion in a prestigious exhibition of German painter-etchers at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. He died in 1949.

Jugendstil bookplates

The bookplate or ex libris has put bread and butter on many an artist’s table, and over the course of time has developed into a flourishing art form all of its own. I don’t pretend to know very much about the history and development of ex libris, but seem to have acquired some anyway. I think this little group of Austrian, Czech and German bookplates of the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) period are particularly charming. They come from the Vienna art revue Die Graphischen Künste, from the years 1911, 1912, and 1914.

Maximilian Liebenwein (Austrian, 1869-1926)

Ex libris Josef Kundrat

Lithograph, 1910

Maximilian Liebenwein

Ex libris Karl Stark

Lithograph, 1910

Maximilian Liebenwein

Ex libris der Verbindung von Wiener Kunstakademikern “Athenaia”

Lithograph, 1910

Alfred Cossmann (Austrian, 1870-1951)

Ex libris Arthur Graf

Etching, c.1912

Alfred Cossman

Ex libris Franz J. Kaiser

Etching. c.1912

Alois Kolb (Austrian, 1875-1942)

Ex libris Gertrud Kolb

Etching, c.1914

Rudolf Junk (Austrian, 1880-1943)

Ex libris Rudolf Junk

Lithograph, c.1914

Arnošt Hofbauer (Czech, 1869-1944)

Ex libris Leopold Heyrovsky

Lithograph, c.1914

Emil Orlik (Czech, 1870-1932)

Ex libris Martha Poensgen

Lithograph, c.1914

Martha Hofrichter (Czech, 1872-1960)

Ex libris Anna Boeck

Lithograph, c.1914

Otokar Štáfl (Czech, 1884-1947)

Ex libris Otokar Štáfl

Lithograph, c.1914

Felix Hollenberg (German, 1868-1945)

Ex libris Albert Gussmann

Etching, c.1914

Julius Diez (German, 1870-1957)

Ex libris Toni Stadler

Lithograph, c.1914

Czech graphic artists before WWI

As demonstrated in my last two posts, most Czech artists before WWI went on to further studies in Germany or Austria. Therefore the influence of teachers such as Doris Raab (Munich), William Unger (Vienna), Peter Halm (Munich) and Alois Kolb (Leipzig), is strongly felt in their work.

Czech interest in the graphic arts was reaching a peak in the years before WWI. If none of the selection of Czech artists who follow achieved the international renown of their compatriots Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) and František Kupka (1871-1957), their work is nonetheless full of interest.

Hermine Laukota, Der Mikroskopiker

Etching, 1892

Hermine Laukota, Interior of a Synagogue

Etching, 1906

Hermine Laukota, Kinderköpfchen

Etching, 1907

The only woman among them, Hermine Laukota (1853-1931), was born in Prague. Hermine Laukota studied etching under Doris Raab and William Unger. Her early career went well, and she exhibited in Vienna in 1889 and in Berlin in 1891. After her return to Prague, her story becomes less easy to track. I’m not even sure if Hermine Laukota was Jewish, though the choice of the interior of a synagogue as the subject of one of my etchings suggests so.

Joža Úprka, Pfingstreiter

Etching, 1907

The painter and printmaker Joža Úprka (1861-1940) was born in Knĕždub and died in Hroznova. He studied at the Prague Academy (where he learned etching from Eduard Karel), and the Munich Academy. His brother Franta Úprka was a noted sculptor.

Rudolf Jettmar, Nacht und Träume

Etching with aquatint, 1907

Rudolf Jettmar (1869-1939) was born in Zawodzie, and died in Vienna. He studied at the academies in Vienna and Karlsruhe, therefore coming under the influence of teachers such as William Unger and Leopold von Kalckreuth. Rudolf Jettmar was a member of the Vienna Secession from 1898. The luxurious decadence of my etching by Jettmar (which comes from the series Stunden der Nacht) reminds me of the work of Alois Kolb, and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover some connection between the two; perhaps, though, it is simply case of shared influences.

August Brömse, Eine Todte

Etching with aquatint, 1902

August Brömse (1873-1925) was born in Frantiskovy Làzne, and died in Prague. Brömse studied in Prague and Berlin, where he came strongly under the influence of Max Klinger. This influence can be seen in my etching, which is part of August Brömse’s mordidly erotic 1902 series Death and the Maiden, inspired by  sense of doomed love for the opera singer Elsa Schünemann. Brömse and Schünemann married in 1910, when August Brömse was head of the print studio at the Prague Academy. My etching by August Brömse is known in English as An Old Song; it is reproduced as plate 258 in Otto M. Urban’s intriguing-sounding study In Morbid Colors: Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands 1880-1914 (2006).

Viktor Stretti, Überschwemmung

Etching, 1899

Viktor Stretti, Untitled landscape

Aquatint, 1904

Viktor Stretti (1878-1957) was born in Plasy. Stretti studied at the Prague Academy and at the Munich Academy, where he learned etching from Peter Halm. After a short time in Paris, Viktor Stretti settled in Prague in 1901.