Illustrations by Franz Wacik
Franz Wacik
for the humor magazine Die Muskete, circa 1906–1911 Vienna
1909
Li-An has been posting a ton of material from Die Muskete on his tumblr. As I work my own way through the complete archive at Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Franz Wacik's strange out-of-time work keeps catching my eye. Apparently he published 600 drawings in the magazine from 1906 to 1919. (I've made it through mid-1911 and have hoarded a couple hundred.)
Information about Wacik (Vienna, 1883–1938) is scant, so luckily Barbara Copeland Buenger discusses him in her essay "Unwieldy Wien" (from Design, Vienna: 1890s to 1930s):
As one of the group's greatest founders and practitioners, [Czeschka] has always received central notice in histories of modern Viennese art and design. Such is not true of Franz Wacik, widely admired as a political and social cartoonist for a popular Viennese humorous weekly, occasional theater designer, and illustrator of children's books (he designed three volumes in the Gerlach series). Wacik is all but forgotten in texts that present the Wiener Werkstätte as Vienna's only modern art movement and thus reminds us that a richer, more complicated history of modern art often falls outside a too-strictly-construed modernist canon. Wacik was a regular member and exhibitor with the Secession, and illustrated Hugo von Hofmannsthal's famous wartime children's book, Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter [Prince Eugene the Nobel Knight] in 1915. [Ed.: See my scan at the bottom of this post.]
Another short bio at Kunsthandel Hieke:
[Wacik] studied at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and at the Vienna Academy. [Ed.: he studied with Alfred Roller, Christian Griepenkerl, Franz Rumpler, and Heinrich Lefler.] From 1906 to 1919, he worked for the magazine “Muskete” -- 600 of his drawings are from this period. In 1924, he designed the frescoes on the first floor of the Vienna Secession, and in 1927/8 the frescoes in the arcades of the municipal building on Vogelweidplatz...For his work, he was awarded the Lampi Prize and the Füger Medal as well as the State Prize in 1934. The Vienna Secession held a memorial exhibition in 1939.
Buenger mentions "the artist Marianne Wacik, Franz Wacik's wife" — I haven't yet looked her up.
Anyway, ENJOY. At the end of the post I provide some non-Muskete work.
1906
1909 (is that Jeeves?)
1906
1910
1907
1906
1907
1909
1908
1907
1906 (this one's all about the cat)
1906
1910
1907
1907
1907
1910
1911
Non-Muskete work:
Illus. for Hugo von Hofmannsthal's wartime children's book, Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter (1915)
"The Midnight Feast"
via John Coulthart's 2009 post on feuilleton
1912 poster by Franz Wacik via The Vienna Secession site
Paul Gauguin: June 7th 1848
June 7, 2013 By
Born on June 7, 1848, Paul Gauguin in Paris, France, Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist
artist. Gauguin’s father was a French journalist and his mother was
Peruvian. The family left Paris in 1851 for Peru, however Gauguin’s
father Clovis, died on the voyage over. Gauguin’s early life
experiences in Peru would later have a great influence on the imagery in
his paintings. At the age of seven, the family returned to Orléans,
France to live with Gauguin’s grandfather.
Though Gauguin had been interested in
art since childhood, he held several jobs before turning to painting
full-time. Including fulfilling his required military service as a
pilot’s assistant in the merchant marine, Gauguin also joined the navy,
held a job as a stock broker, a sales representative for a canvas
manufacturer, and other odd jobs that sustained his painting career.
In 1873, Gauguin married Mette Sophie
Gad, a Danish woman with whom he had five children. In his free time,
he began painting and became friends with Camille Pissarro and met other
artists including Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh. Gauguin received little formal artistic training, though he was tutored by some of the professionals in his community.
As he became more involved with his art,
Gauguin rented a studio, and showed paintings in Impressionist
exhibitions between 1881 and 1882. In 1885, with a growing desire to
paint full-time, Gauguin left his job as a stock broker and his wife and
children in Copenhagen, returning to Paris.
In 1886, Gauguin began his lifelong
migration between regions of French Polynesia and Paris often surviving
on little or no money. Disappointed with Impressionism and influenced by
folk art and Japanese prints, Gauguin evolved towards Cloisonnism and then Synthetism and Primitavism. Gauguin is considered to be the first artist to achieve broad success using the Primitive technique.
In the autumn of 1888, Gauguin traveled to Arles France where he stayed with Vincent van Gogh
for two months, working together and discussing artistic theories. The
tension between the artists grew and they quarreled often. Van Gogh was
vulnerable and hyper-sensitive, and a bullying and egocentric Gauguin
often threatened to leave. It was during this time that van Gogh lost a
portion of his left ear though whether Gauguin was directly involved in this incident in still debated to this day.
From 1891-93, Gauguin lived in Tahiti
where he spent considerable time working on his sculpture and woodcuts.
In 1893, he returned to France where he prepared for his exhibition at
Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris which was not considered to be a success.
Gauguin returned to Tahiti in 1895 : “it
was a period of intense creativity, during which he painted and
sculpted a great deal and seemed to go further in his metaphysical
questioning, obsessed by the thought of death”. However, in April 1897,
he learned of the death of his daughter Aline, to whom he was deeply
attached. “Gauguin tried unsuccessfully to kill himself by taking
arsenic. Physically and morally shaken, he took an office job in
Papeete, which allowed him to earn a living for a while. He seemed to
become detached from his own work. When Maurice Denis wrote to him
asking if he would participate in an exhibition of the Nabis in Paris,
he replied in June 1899 ‘I no longer paint except on Sundays and
holidays’.”
Gauguin’s paintings significantly
influenced Modern art movements and artists including Matisse, Picasso,
Braque, Fauvism, Cubism, and Orphism. Gauguin also created two- and
three-dimensional sculptures and functional objects ranging from
portrait busts and architectural reliefs to objects such as vases, knife
handles, and wine casks. He was also an influential supporter of wood
engraving and woodcuts as art forms.
In the last years of his life, Gauguin
succumbed to various illnesses, including syphilis. He died on May 8,
1903 and remains buried at Calvary Cemetery – Marquesas Islands, French
Polynesia.
For a complete biography and to view his complete works, visit MoMA or Paul-Gauguin.net.
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