Alexander Kircher

Alexander Kircher

Alexander Kircher in his library room, after 1935
Born February 26, 1867
Trieste, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Died September 16, 1939(1939-09-16) (aged 72)
Berlin, Germany
Nationality Austrian/German
Known for Marine and landscape paintings, drawings and illustrations
Movement 1904 from Trieste to Dresden (Saxony), Germany
Awards Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic
Patron(s) Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II

Alexander Kircher (26 February 1867 – 16 September 1939) was an Austrian-German marine- and landscape painter and an illustrator. Many of his paintings are exhibited in museums in Germany, Austria, Croatia and Slovenia or are privately owned in those countries. But there are also some of his paintings in the United States of America, Great Britain, Scandinavia and Greece. The paintings of Kircher are offered at leading auction houses such as Christie's and Bonhams London, Sotheby's New York, Burchard Galleries St.Petersburg Florida,[1] Stahl Hamburg,[2] Van Ham Cologne,[3] the Dorotheum in Vienna and several others. The majority of his paintings the artist signed with Alex Kircher, where he sometimes wrote the year of the creation of the image below. But in his paintings, you will also find the signatures as shown here by the auction house to German Bergmann auction.[4]

Life

Alexander Kircher and his wife aboard his Austrian steam yacht Romana
It's coffee time now aboard the steamer yacht Romana
SMS Budapest at a buoy manœuvres with Alexander Kircher on the bow – 1902 [5]
The house in Dresden, Johann- staedter Ufer 16, where Kircher and his family lived from 1904 to 1906 [6]
The villa Jagdweg 6 in which Kircher and his family lived 1922-1933

Kircher was born in Trieste, which belonged at that time to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Habsburg Monarchy). As a young man he intended to choose the profession of a naval officer in the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Because of a foot injury his application was rejected. In 1888 he opted for studying painting at the Berlin Academy, where he concentrated mainly on marine painting from the start. His teachers were Hans Gude and Hermann Eschke.[7]

Kircher made numerous study trips throughout Europa, Asia, North America and Egypt. During these travels, he made several important paintings, drawings and illustrations. In 1893 he worked on the picturesque decoration of buildings at the World Exhibition in Chicago as well as panoramas and dioramas of the marine painter Hans von Petersen.[8] In addition, Kircher worked as an illustrator for popular German and foreign magazines and publishers of which only a few can be mentioned: The Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung or the modern illustrated weekly Reclams universe (Leipzig), the writings of the Austrian (Vienna) and the German fleet association (Berlin) and the Viennese publisher Philipp & Kramer, for which he designed the postcard series "Dalmatia and Istria".[9] These include Feldpost, postcards which Kircher created for the Austrian Red Cross, the War Welfare Office or the War Aid Office and also for the London Postcard Publisher Raphael Tuck & Sons and the Swedish Postcards Publisher: "Gothenburg Lithographic AB and Meyer & Köster" etc. For some time Kircher owned a steam yacht, which he named Romana – this was his wife's name. With this ship he could better motives collect and draw maritime objects from the area. This he did for example in fleet parades.

Austrian 70 Cent Stamps SMS Novara, circumnavigation 1857–1859, celestial navigation at sea, after a painting from A. Kircher, 2009
The grave of Kircher family in the cemetery of Moritzburg, Saxony

Between 1895 and 1900 he was a professor at the Art Academy in Trieste and married Romana Salmassi[10] in the Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo[11] on October 15, 1898. From this connection, three sons and three daughters were born. In 1904, after a short stay in Vienna, Kircher moved from Trieste to Dresden, where he lived until 2006 and where he joined as a freelance artist to the General German art cooperative. 2006 the family moved to Moritzburg. From 1922 Kircher lived in Niederlößnitz at Villa Jagdweg 6 and from 1933 to about 1935 in Kötzschenbroda-Niederlößnitz.[12] In June 1935, Kircher's wife died. Then the painter moved to Klotzsche in a residential building, which belonged to the former Air War School Klotzsche.[13]

Influential members of the nobility and some industrialists – especially from the circles of Maritime Navigation[14] – promoted the artist. First of them Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II. On behalf of these two monarchs, Kircher painted numerous images of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the Imperial German Navy. His paintings were also found on the large passenger ships of the time, as well as in the offices of well known shipping companies and shipyards and of course also in private ownership. During World War II, several images got lost or disappeared. An example of the many lost images is the large oil painting of the steamship Columbus ("The Columbus in the Kaiser lock"). This painting was given by the North German Lloyd as a gift to the city of Bremerhaven on the occasion of its 100th anniversary in 1927. The painting has disappeared at the end of World War II (1945). Others of his paintings have been preserved for posterity and can be seen in many museums today; see list of locations excerpt.

Kircher concluded his life's work with a series of one hundred paintings which documented the development of German shipping over a millennium and which hung in the Institute and Museum of Oceanography MfM.[15] of the University of Berlin. The current location of the works is unknown, reproductions have since appeared as an image panel work (1934) and in book form (1939)[16] and recently only in parts on CD-ROM (2010).[17] Meanwhile, 22 images, of which the majority is from the collection of MfM, were rediscovered in the archives of Wehrgeschichtliches Training Centre of the Naval Academy Mürwik in Flensburg-Mürwik. Kircher died on September 16, 1939, in Berlin, the last place where he had worked. The painter was laid to rest in the family grave in Moritzburg, Saxony.

Awards and decorations

Kircher received the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic in February 1909 in the Spanish Embassy in Berlin.[18] This award will be given for services to art and science.

Collection of paintings (excerpt)

Larger Image collections

Others

In the remarkable Austro-Hungarian Navy Museum "Gallerion",[30] in Novigrad, Istria (Croatia), multiple replicas and photographs of well known Kircher paintings will be shown.

Literature

Exhibitions

Gallery

  1. ^ Rovinj heritage museum
  2. ^ HP of Austrian Museum of Artstetten Castle

References

  1. ↑ Burchard Galleries Antiques and Arts Auctioneer, St. Petersburg/Florida
  2. ↑ Auction house Stahl, Hamburg, Germany
  3. ↑ VAN HAM Fine Art Auctioneers, Cologne, Germany
  4. ↑ Signature Directory Auction House Bergmann, Erlangen, Germany
  5. ↑ Back of the photograph with date and dedication of Alexander Kircher
  6. ↑ SLUB Historical address books Dresden, 1702 - 1944
  7. ↑ Painter Hermann Eschke in the German Wikipedia
  8. ↑ Hans von Petersen in the German Wikipedia
  9. ↑ Historical Postcards of Istria, Rijeka, Kvarner and Dalmatia
  10. ↑ Excerpt from the ancestry certificate of Alexander Kircher and Romana Salmassi
  11. ↑ The Church of Sant'Antonio Traumaturgo in Trieste
  12. ↑ Radebeul - Niederlößnitz is today a part of the city of Radebeul/Meißen in Saxonia (Germany)
  13. ↑ see also Alexander Kircher in the German Wikipedia under Life
  14. ↑ Anniversary edition 70 years North German Lloyd with the dedication to Alexander Kircher
  15. ↑ Museum für Meereskunde in the German Wikipedia
  16. ↑ Wolfgang Loeff: Deutschlands Seegeltung, Berlin, 1939 in German language
  17. ↑ Alexander Kircher, marine painter - Historical Image Service
  18. ↑ Alexander Kircher located in the German Wikipedia under Awards
  19. ↑ Idealized, large-scale painting of the passenger ship Isonzo in the Gulf of Trieste, Technical Museum, Vienna - in German
  20. ↑ Austrian Marine Association, Vienna
  21. ↑ Painting SMS STOSCH - SMS STEIN - SMS GNEISENAU - inscription on the frame back
  22. ↑ German cable steamer Stephan
  23. ↑ Museum of the city of Rovinj, Rovinj
  24. ↑ The Croatian Maritime Museum, Split
  25. ↑ The Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria, Pula
  26. ↑ Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral in Rijeka Archived January 16, 2015, at the Wayback Machine.
  27. ↑ Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum, Piran
  28. ↑ Sergej Masera Maritime Museum, original HP
  29. ↑ see also German Wikipedia under Kommandeursvilla
  30. ↑ Austro-Hungarian Navy Museum "Gallerion" - Contribution in German language
  31. ↑ Exhibition catalog from the year 2000 Vessel Portraits by Alexander Kircher
  32. ↑ RESIDENZGALERIE SALZBURG, Austria
  33. ↑ Exhibition "Ship ahead" in the Residenzgalerie, Salzburg, Austria
  34. ↑ Exhibitions of paintings Vessel Portraits by Alexander Kircher

External links

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