| Ernst
Fuchs has been a mentor, teacher, and guide to many of the members of
the Society for Art of Imagination. He has generously shared his knowledge
over the years, and his students have gone on to teach a new generation
of Fantastic artists. |
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| The
Vienna School of Fantastic Realism formed in 1946 and included Ernst Fuchs,
Rudolph Hausner, Wolfgang Hutter and Fritz Janschka. Arik Brauer and Anton
Lemden joined later. The group saw itself as surrealist although they
were already moving away from the surrealist painting of the 1930s towards
a more visionary approach. Technically their work had the clarity and
detail of early Flemish Painting. |
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 `Psalm 69 1960 |
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| They
were quite influential on the continent, but little known or appreciated
in Britain. In 1957 Hausner fell out with surrealist orthodoxy after
completing his first Adam picture and split from Fuchs and the others
to pursue his own vision. Fuchs had already moved away from surrealism
into visionary mannerism. He painted a number of paintings with religious
subjects culminating in his triptych The Mysteries of the Holy Rosary
for the Catholic church in Hetzendorf, Vienna. |
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| His
paintings from the late 50s to the present day have extraordinary visionary
power. Babylonian Cherubs, visions of Christ and other mythological
subjects explore the roots of middle eastern religious experience. The
power of colour, form and content set his work apart from modernism. |
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| In
1970, he began to work on monumental sculptures. Later in 1973, he acquired
the Otto Wagner Villa in Vienna, which he subsequently renovated completely
and which is now the Ernst Fuchs Museum and contains a complete range
of his work to date. He then undertook stage designs for operas, especially
Wagner. In
the 1980s, he had a number of international exhibitions including a
retrospective in Venice. In 1993 he had a major retrospective in Russia
— one of the first major western artists to do so. |
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 "Adam and Eve in Front of the Tree of Knowledge" 1984 |
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