Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959) was an Austrian

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...

, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and

Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it ra ...

Biography

Kubin was born in

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

in the town of Leitmeritz,

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

(now

Litoměřice Litoměřice (; german: Leitmeritz) is a town in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 23,000 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument reservation. The town is the seat ...

). From 1892 to 1896, he was apprenticed to the

landscape photographer Landscape photography shows the spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes ...

Alois Beer, although he learned little. 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. In 1898, Kubin began a period of artistic study at a private academy run by the painter Ludwig Schmitt-Reutte, before enrolling at the

Munich Academy The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

in 1899, without finishing his studies there. In Munich, Kubin discovered the works of

Odilon Redon Odilon Redon (born Bertrand Redon; ; 20 April 18406 July 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, he worked almost exclusivel ...

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, '' The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the d ...

James Ensor James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic g ...

Henry de Groux Henry de Groux (15 September 1866 – 12 January 1930)"Colours of the War: Art Work of Belgian Soldiers at the Front (1914–1918): A Selection of the Collections kept at the Royal Army Museum in Brussels; published 2000; ; page 57 was a Bel ...

, and

Félicien Rops Félicien Victor Joseph Rops (7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) was a Belgian artist associated with Symbolism and the Parisian Fin-de Siecle. He was a painter, illustrator, caricaturist and a prolific and innovative print maker, particularly in ...

. He was profoundly affected by the prints of

Max Klinger Max Klinger (18 February 1857 – 5 July 1920) was a German artist who produced significant work in painting, sculpture, prints and graphics, as well as writing a treatise articulating his ideas on art and the role of graphic arts and printmak ...

, 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".Arnason & Wheeler 1986, p. 88. The

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio (printmaking), intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. ...

technique used by Klinger and

Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

influenced the style of his works of this period, which are mainly ink and

wash WASH (or Watsan, WaSH) is an acronym that stands for "water, sanitation and hygiene". It is used widely by non-governmental organizations and aid agencies in developing countries. The purposes of providing access to WASH services include achievi ...

drawings of fantastical, often macabre subjects. Kubin produced a small number of oil paintings in the years between 1902 and 1910, but thereafter his output consisted of

pen and ink A pen is a common writing tool, writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a Nib (pen), nib or in a sm ...

drawings,

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

s, and

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

s. In 1911, he became associated with the ''

Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

'' group, and exhibited with them in the '' Galerie Der Sturm'' in Berlin in 1913. After that time, he lost contact with the artistic avant-garde. Herrensitz von Alfred Kubin in Zwickledt Oberoesterreich

Herrensitz von Alfred Kubin in Zwickledt Oberoesterreich

Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and

and is noted for dark, spectral, symbolic fantasies, often assembled into thematic series of drawings. Like

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expres ...

and

Albert Paris Gütersloh Albert Paris Gütersloh (born Albert Conrad Kiehtreiber; 5 February 1887 – 16 May 1973) was an Austrian painter and writer. Gütersloh worked as actor, director, and stage designer before he focused on painting in 1921. As a teacher of A ...

, Kubin had both artistic and literary talent. He illustrated works of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

E. T. A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in ...

, and

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

, among others. Kubin also illustrated the German fantasy magazine '' Der Orchideengarten''.Siegfried Schödel, ''Studien zu den phantastischen Erzählungen Gustav Meyrinks'', Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1965, (p.27).Rosenberg, Karen. 15 October 2008
Mapping the Shadowy Corners of the Subconscious
The New York Times. Retrieved 3 April 2012. From 1906 until his death, he lived a withdrawn life in a Manor-House on a 12th-century estate in Zwickledt, Upper Austria. In 1938, at the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germa ...

of Austria and

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, his work was declared entartete Kunst or "

degenerate art Degenerate art (german: Entartete Kunst was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, ...

," but he managed to continue working during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

''The Other Side''

Kubin's only literary work was ''Die andere Seite'' () (1908), a fantastic novel set in an oppressive imaginary land. The novel has an atmosphere of

claustrophobic Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces. It can be triggered by many situations or stimuli, including elevators, especially when crowded to capacity, windowless rooms, and hotel rooms with closed doors and sealed windows. Even bedrooms with ...

absurdity An absurdity is a state or condition of being extremely unreasonable, meaningless or unsound in reason so as to be irrational or not taken seriously. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "Tyler and the boys laughed at ...

similar to the writings of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

, who admired the book. The illustrations for the book were originally intended for '' The Golem'' by

Gustav Meyrink Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel '' The Golem''. He has been described as the "most respected Germa ...

, but as that book was delayed, Kubin instead worked his illustrations into his own novel.

Nazi-looted art

In 2016, the

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus The Lenbachhaus () is a building housing an art museum in Munich's '' Kunstareal''. The building The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl and was expa ...

Munich restituted, to the heirs of Max 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. The German Lost Art Foundation lists 24 artworks by Kubin in its database, many of which are from the Found-Object Reports from the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden which launched Nazi-era provenance research in 2008.

Honours and awards

* City of Vienna Prize for Visual Arts (1950) * Grand Austrian State Prize for Visual Art (1951) *

Austrian Medal for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian D ...

(1957) * Gustav Klimt badge as an honorary member of the

Vienna Secession The Vienna Secession (german: Wiener Secession; also known as ''the Union of Austrian Artists'', or ''Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs'') is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austri ...

Collections

* ''Kubin's Dance of Death and Other Drawings'' (1973) (art collection) () * ''The Life and Art of Alfred Kubin'' (2017) (autobiography) ()

Gallery

File:Der Staat by Alfred Kubin (1899-1900).jpg, ''The State'' (1899–1900) File:Alfred Kubin - Dolmen, c. 1900-1902 - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Dolmen'' (c. 1900–1902), Indian ink, wash, spray paint, and white body color,

Albertina The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...

, Vienna File:Jede nacht besucht uns ein traum.jpg, ''A Dream Visits us Every Night'' (1900) File:The past forgotten swallowed.jpg, ''The Past Forgotten Swallowed'' (1901) File:The lady on the horse.jpg, ''The Lady on the Horse'' (1901), pen, ink, wash and spray File:The last king.jpg, ''The Last King'' (1902) File:The moment of birth.jpg, ''The Moment of Birth'' (1902) File:Siberian fairy tale.jpg, ''Siberian Fairy Tale'' (1902) File:Angst by Alfred Kubin.jpg, ''Angst'' (1903) File:Black mass.jpg, ''Black Mass'' (1905)

Notes

References

* Arnason, H. H., & Wheeler, D. (1986). ''History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography''. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. * Assman, Peter ''Alfred Kubin 1877–1959''. Exhibition catalogue Brussels (Ixelles) 1997 * ''Alfred Kubin''. Exhibition catalogue Neue Galerie New York 2008 * Romana Schuler ''Alfred Kubin, Aus meinem Reich''. Exhibition catalogue Leopold Museum Vienna 2003 * ''Traumgestalten. 100 Meisterwerke aus dem Besitz der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina''. Vienna 1990

External links

* *
www.alfred-kubin.com (in German)

Stefan Üner: Alfred Kubin. Bewusst in Unbewusste
in: Parnass, Vienna 2019
''Water Spirit'': oil painting by Alfred Kubin

''Die Blaetter mit dem Tod''
book of prints by Alfred Kubin at the

Leo Baeck Institute, New York The Leo Baeck Institute New York (LBI) is a research institute in New York City dedicated to the study of German-Jewish history and culture, founded in 1955. It is one of three independent research centers founded by a group of German-speaking J ...

More than 200 paintings and drawings by Alfred Kubin
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kubin, Alfred 1877 births 1959 deaths 19th-century Austrian people 20th-century Austrian novelists 20th-century Austrian male writers Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni Austrian autobiographers Austrian etchers Austrian illustrators Austrian fantasy writers Austrian people of German Bohemian descent Austrian people of Czech descent Austrian speculative fiction artists Austrian male novelists People from Litoměřice Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art Recipients of the Grand Austrian State Prize Writers who illustrated their own writing Weird fiction writers