Emil Fuchs (artist)
Austrian-American sculptor and painter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Austrian-American sculptor and painter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emil Fuchs MVO (9 August 1866 – 13 January 1929) was an Austrian–American sculptor, medallist, painter, and author[1] who worked in Vienna, London and New York. He painted portraits of Queen Victoria and Edward VII and was fashionable among London high society in the early 20th century.[2][3][4][5]
He was born in Vienna on 9 August 1866. During his years in Austria, Germany and Rome he was a sculptor and medallist who eventually began to study painting as well. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under Edmund von Hellmer and Viktor Oskar Tilgner.[6] He then attended the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin where he studied under Fritz Schaper and Anton von Werner.[3] From 1891 to 1897 he was in Rome, having won the German Prix de Rome in 1891.[3] While in Rome he had an affair with Elvira Fraternali; this is referred to in the film D'Annunzio.[4] He had a sister Renee, and was brother-in-law of Gustav Freytag.[4]
From 1897 to 1915 his address was in London where he regularly met with the artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema.[3][4] He had been mainly a sculptor and medallist, but he began oil painting, especially portraiture in oils, in 1897; his early mentor was John Singer Sargent. He exhibited works at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1898 and he taught there.[2][7] He worked on commissions including portraits for Queen Victoria and Edward VII, and his portraits became fashionable among various patrons from the aristocracy and high society.[2][3][4][5] He was honoured with the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1909.[8] While in England he was employed by the Birmingham Mint.[5] By 1905 he had been teaching at Paris, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and Rome and was making winter trips to the United States.[4][7]
Fuchs began going to the United States in 1905, primarily to paint portraits of wealthy socialites. In 1915 during World War I, "a wave of anti-German sentiment" swept England so, to escape it he moved permanently to New York,[9] producing more works there and offering assistance with the war effort. He became a US citizen in 1924. He had surgery for cancer in 1928, and in anticipation of a death with great suffering he shot himself at the Hotel des Artistes in New York on 13 January 1929, aged 62.[3][4][10] His will created a foundation which put his art on view as a permanent exhibit, and for this he left $500,000 plus artworks to the public.[11]
During his career in Vienna, Berlin, Rome, England and New York he created portrait busts, figurines, memorials, medals, oil paintings and other works of art.[3] Collections of his work are held at the American Numismatic Society, Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Thomas J. Watson Library and the Library of Congress.[7][12][13]
Between 1898 and 1902 he showed fourteen works over seven Royal Academy summer exhibitions. This included busts, figure groups, figurines, medals, and marble and bronze plaquettes.[5] In 1898 he exhibited marble busts of Lady Alice Montagu and Mr Carl Meyer at the autumn exhibition in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.[5] In 1900 at the same gallery he exhibited a portrait of Arthur W. Pinero and a bronze sculpture called Grip of Death, and in 1901 a bronze head.[5][14] In 1901 at the RA summer exhibition he showed a case of medals including "portraits of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, H. M. King Edward VII., Lord Roberts, General Sir George White, General Baden-Powell, and the Peace Medal, of which two varieties exist".[5] In 1902 he had a one-man exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, London.[3]
The following is a selection of his work:
A selection of Fuchs' sculptures can be found in:
A selection of Fuchs' paintings can be found at:
A selection of Fuchs' medallic art can be found at:
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