Fritz WOTRUBA

Biography

Fritz Wotruba, born in Vienna on 23 April 1907, is an Austrian sculptor of Czech-Hungarian descent, who is considered one of the most important representatives of 20th century Austrian sculpture.

From 1921 to 1924, he trained as an apprentice in the workshop of the printmaker Josef Schantin in Vienna; at the same time, until the summer of 1926, he attended evening drawing sessions at the Vienna School of Fine Arts, based on live models, but Hans Bitterlich refused to accept him into his class.

In the autumn of 1926, he was admitted to the School of Applied Arts where he was a pupil of Anton Hanak and, in his studio, met Marian Fleck, the daughter of a Düsseldorf merchant who had come to perfect her skills in metal sculpture and whom he married on 27 December 1929; following differences of opinion with Anton, he and Marian left his class for that of Professor Steihof, and both attended his classes with a view to obtaining a scholarship; they ended their studies in 1929. In 1928 Fritz made his first work, a male torso in limestone, which was bought by the city of Vienna in 1930. The proceeds of this sale enabled the couple to travel to western Germany, where Marian's parents lived, and to the Netherlands, to discover the work of Aristide Maillol at the Folkwang Museum in Essen and the art of Wilhelm Lehmbruck during a visit to the Duisburg Museum.

During the unrest in Vienna in February 1934 between the workers and Engelbert Dollfuss's police force, Fritz and Marian moved to Zurich and Switzerland was again their home from 1938 to 1945.

In 1945, Fritz Wotruba returned to Vienna, which he never left. On the recommendation of Herbert Boeckl, he was called to the Academy of Fine Arts where he took over the direction of a master class.

Fritz Wotruba died on 28 August 1975 and is buried in Vienna's central cemetery, the Zentralfriedhof.