Albin Egger-Lienz

(1868-1926)

Italy / Austria – Art of the Interwar Period – Expressionism – Albin Egger-Lienz

Vita:

Even as a child, Albin Egger-Lienz received initial instructions in drawing and painting from his father Georg Egger. At the age of 14 he began his targeted painting training at the Munich Academy with Hugo Engl. During this time he got to know the artist Franz von Defreggers, who influenced him very much in his later works. Other role models included Ferdinand Hodler and Jean-Francois Millet. Immediately after completing his painting course, he started studying fine arts at the Academy in Munich at the age of 16. In 1899 he and his wife move to the city of their choice, Vienna. Only a year later he was a member of the Künstlerhaus. Over the years he had a very ambivalent relationship with his adopted city. On the one hand, Vienna is the city in which he created his most important work (“The Dance of Death”) and, on the other hand, due to contradicting reactions to his art, a purchase ban was issued for his works and thus Albin Egger-Lienz no longer received any public commissions.

During the war he was one of the artists‘ circle of war painters. After the end of the war, he was offered a job at the Vienna Academy, which he declined with thanks. Until 1925 he worked on the design of the war memorial chapel in Lienz. In his last years Albin Egger-Lienz was made an honorary doctorate from the University of Innsbruck.

Work:

The artist Albin Egger-Lienz is certainly one of the most important painters of Austrian modernism. His masterful genius extends mainly to religious motifs, rural scenes, stories from the Tyrolean struggle for freedom and scenes of war, most of which he painted in oil. His works from the time he was a war painter are still considered to be important representatives against the atrocities of violence and war. A particularly formative painting of this time was “The Dance of Death”. The central role that the work plays in the artist’s oeuvre was made clear by the fact that Albin Egger-Lienz produced several stylistic variations of the painting. The enormous interest in this work can be proven by the fact that „The Dance of Death“ is still the artist’s most exhibited and reproduced picture. It is one of the main works of Austrian art history.