Alfred Roller (2 October 1864 – 21 June 1935) was an Austrian painter,

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

er, and

set design Scenic design, also known as stage design or set design, is the creation of scenery for theatrical productions including plays and musicals. The term can also be applied to film and television productions, where it may be referred to as prod ...

er. His wife was Mileva Roller and they were members of the

Viennese Secession The Vienna Secession (; also known as the Union of Austrian Artists or ) is an art movement, closely related to Art Nouveau, that was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian painters, graphic artists, sculptors and architects, including Josef Hof ...

movement.

Life and work

Roller was born in

Brünn Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

(Brno),

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

. He at first studied painting at the

Academy of Fine Arts The following is a list of notable art schools. Accredited non-profit art and design colleges * Adelaide Central School of Art * Alberta College of Art and Design * Art Academy of Cincinnati * Art Center College of Design * The Art Institute ...

in Vienna under

Christian Griepenkerl Christian Griepenkerl (17 March 1839 – 22 March 1916) was a German painter and professor, best known for rejecting Adolf Hitler's application to train at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Biography Griepenkerl was born to one of Oldenburg (cit ...

and

Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels (18 November 1833, Vienna — 22 January 1913, Berlin) was an Austrian Landscape painting, landscape painter. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, under Franz Steinfeld and Thomas Ender. He taught landsc ...

, but eventually became disenchanted with the Academy's traditionalism. In 1897 he co-founded the

with

Koloman Moser Koloman Moser (; 30 March 1868 – 18 October 1918) was an Austrian artist who exerted considerable influence on twentieth-century graphic art. He was one of the foremost artists of the Vienna Secession movement and a co-founder of Wiener Werk ...

Joseph Maria Olbrich Joseph Maria Olbrich (22 December 1867 – 8 August 1908) was an Austrian architect and one of the Vienna Secession founders. Early life Olbrich was born in Troppau, Austrian Silesia (modern day Opava, Czech Republic), the third child of Edm ...

Josef Hoffmann Josef Hoffmann (15 December 1870 – 7 May 1956) was an Austrians, Austrian-Sudeten Germans, Moravian architect and designer. He was among the founders of Vienna Secession and co-establisher of the Wiener Werkstätte. His most famous architect ...

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sket ...

, and other artists who rejected the prevalent academic style of art. He became a professor of drawing at the

University of Applied Arts Vienna The University of Applied Arts Vienna (, or informally just ''Die Angewandte'') is an arts university and institution of higher education in Vienna, the capital of Austria. It has had university status since 1970. History The predecessor of the ...

(''

Kunstgewerbeschule A Kunstgewerbeschule (English: ''School of Arts and Crafts'' or S''chool of Applied Arts'') was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for the ...

'') in 1899, and president of the Secession in 1902. In his early career, Roller was very active as a graphic designer and draughtsman. He designed numerous covers and

vignette Vignette may refer to: * Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy * Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters * Vignette (literature), short, i ...

s for the pages of the Secessionist periodical ''

Ver Sacrum ''Ver sacrum'' ("sacred spring") is a religious practice of ancient Italic peoples, especially the Sabelli (or Sabini) and their offshoot Samnites, concerning the dedication of colonies. It was of special interest to Georges Dumézil, according ...

'', as well as the posters for the fourth, fourteenth, and sixteenth Secession exhibitions. He also designed the layout of the exhibitions themselves. Some of his work, particularly the lettering, influenced later psychedelic concert poster art. In 1902 Roller was introduced to the composer

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic music, Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and ...

Carl Moll Carl Julius Rudolf Moll (23 April 1861 – 12 April 1945) was an Austrian Art Nouveau painter active in Vienna at the start of the 20th century. He was one of the artists of the Vienna Secession who took inspiration from the pointillist techniqu ...

. Roller expressed an interest in stage design and showed Mahler several sketches he had made for

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

's ''

Tristan und Isolde ''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance ''Tristan and Iseult'' by Gottfried von Stras ...

''. Mahler was impressed and decided to employ Roller to design the sets for a new production of the piece. The production, which premiered in February 1903, was a great critical success. Roller continued to design sets for Mahler's productions. In 1906 he married the

painter Mileva Roller and they had two sons: Dietrich (1909–2001) became a doctor, while Ulrich (1911–1941) became a stage designer and died in Stolpovo near Kaluga (in the Soviet Union) shortly after Christmas 1941. Eventually, Roller left the Secession and his teaching post at the Kunstgewerbeschule to be appointed chief stage designer to the

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by ...

, a position he held until 1909. He died in Vienna in 1935. Alfred Roller's brother-in-law was the World War I

flying ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviation, military aviator credited with shooting down a certain minimum number of enemy aircraft during aerial combat; the exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ...

Raoul Stojsavljevic (1887–1930).http://issuu.com/innsbruckinformiert/docs/_innsbrucker_stadtnachrichten_199009_nr09_gesamt - Seite 35

References

External links

*
Entry for Alfred Roller
on the

Union List of Artist Names The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary, which by 2018 contained over 300,000 artists and over 720,000 names for them, as well as other information about artist ...

*
W.H. Crain Costume and Scene Design Collection
at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center, known as the Humanities Research Center until 1983, is an archive, library, and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roller, Alfred 19th-century Austrian painters 20th-century Austrian painters 19th-century Austrian male artists 20th-century Austrian male artists Austrian male painters Members of the Vienna Secession Painters from Austria-Hungary World War I propaganda Moravian-German people Austrian people of Moravian-German descent People from the Margraviate of Moravia People from Brno 1864 births 1935 deaths

Life and work

Further reading

References

External links