Fritz Janschka (Austrian American, 1919-2016) Vienna Drawing

Lot description

Fritz Janschka (Austrian-American, 1919-2016) Vienna Mental Hospital Pen and Ink Drawing. Pen and ink drawing is signed upper left Fritz Janschka 1950, Spanierman label on reverse. Acquired from the East Hampton Long Island, New York estate of art dealer Ira Spanierman. Sight size measures 12 inches high x 19.3 wide. Frame measures 18.6 high, 25.7 wide. In good condition other than light mat burn. From AskArt: Painter, sculptor, and printmaker, Fritz Janschka was born in Vienna in 1919. He studied art at the Vienna Akademie der Bildenden Kunste and exhibited in major shows throughout Austria and Italy. He was a member of the Austrian Chapter of the International Arts and was considered part of the Viennese Surrealist Movement. In 1949, while still a student at the Vienna Academy of Art, Janschka was invited to Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania as a visiting artist-in-residence. This teaching position, originally appointed for only a year, instead lasted thirty-five years. In addition, Janschka taught at the Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia. While Janschka has been called a literary artist, having won praise from literary, as well as art critics, he is not an illustrator. He is not interested in descriptive and narrative themes, but rather visual puns and analogies. He has created interpretive works for such classics as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kafka's The Castle. In 1953, after a successful exhibition of the Kafka watercolors, he began a ten-year series of works based on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. In 1964, Janschka began a suite of 54 scenes from Richmond Lattimore's translation of Homer's The Odyssey; the only literal illustrations he has ever done. His later drawings for Joyce's Ulysses were published in Johann Muschik's Janschka Werkstatte Monographie. Janschka has had one-man exhibitions in New York at the Carlen Galleries, the American British Art Gallery, and Este Gallery. The Vienna State Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Fort Worth Art Center have all collected his work; as well as numerous other museums throughout Europe and the United States. From vagallery.com: The Viennese painter, sculptor and graphic artist Fritz Janschka is one of those artists whose place in the history of post-war European art has been secured. He, together with six other young artists, have been recognized as the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism: Wolfgang Hutter (1928-2014), Edgar Jené (1904-1984), Anton Lehmden (1929-), Ernst Fuchs (1930-2015), Rudolf Hausner (1914-1995), and Arik Brauer (1929-). Born in 1919 in Vienna, Fritz Janschka entered the Academy of Fine Arts in 1943. After achieving critical acclaim in Europe, he was eager to expand his horizons and accepted an opportunity to work in America in 1949, where he lived to a ripe old age and inspired many successful artists throughout his lifetime, until his passing Spring 2016.