Ernst Fuchs (1930 – 2015) “Head of a cherub”, created in 1982 Color silkscreen

“Head of a cherub”, created in 1982

Color silkscreen, ed. 200 pieces, signed and numbered

Dimensions 67.7 cm x 45 cm

Ernst Fuchs was born on February 13, 1930 in Vienna Ottakring as the only child of Maximilian and Leopoldine Fuchs; his father was of Jewish descent, which is why his grandfather and father emigrated to the USA and Shanghai in 1938 after the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich. To protect little Ernst from anti-Semitic hostility, it was decided to baptize him according to the Roman Catholic rite in 1942. The 12-year-old Ernst Fuchs was allowed to choose his own baptismal name and chose Ernst Peter Paul, in honor of the painter Peter Paul Rubens, whom he admired at the time. Around the same time, his godmother’s brother, the painter and restorer Alois Schiemann, taught him the basics of drawing and painting. Until the age of 15, he attended the St. Anna painting school in Vienna, where he was taught sculpture and painting by Emmy Steinböck and Fritz Fröhlich.
After the war, Ernst Fuchs was finally able to take up his longed-for studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, which he had previously been denied for racist reasons. His teachers were first Robin Andersen, then Albert Paris Gütersloh. While still a student, he was allowed to hold his first solo exhibition in Paris in 1949, and soon afterwards, in 1950, he also moved to the French capital. Ernst Fuchst traveled through Europe and the USA for six years before taking an extended stay at the Dormition Monastery on Mount Zion in Israel in 1957 to study icon painting in depth. He finally returned to Vienna in 1962, where he founded the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism with former fellow students, of which he himself was to become the most important representative. The early years in particular were characterized by a strong surrealism; mythical and religious symbols in particular appealed to Ernst Fuchs and permeated his work. Later, Fuchs turned increasingly to Mannerism.
Ernst Fuchs’ artistic spectrum broadened over the years: he sang and recorded various albums, which, like the majority of his paintings, were inspired by mystical motifs, and he designed stage sets for such famous operas as Wagner’s Parsifal and Lohengrin or Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Ernst Fuchs also wrote philosophical treatises. He repeatedly collaborated with other artists, including the musicians Klaus Schulze and Chris Karrer. For years, he cultivated friendships with greats such as Hundertwasser, Dalí and Breker; in the 1990s, he designed various buildings in his own fantastic style with rich ornamentation and powerful colors. A curiosity in his long artistic biography is probably the design of a BMW 635 CSI, the “Fire Fox on a Hare Hunt”.

Ernst Fuchs was married four times, had multiple relationships and was the father of sixteen children. He died on November 9, 2015 in Vienna. The name Ernst Fuchs is associated with prizes and awards of all kinds as well as a rich artistic legacy of a musical, painterly and literary nature.