The Fuchs Villa

On Thursday, my class went to the Fuchs Villa, a private museum which is also still the home of Ernst Fuchs, my teachers’ teacher and one of the founders of Fantastic Realism and Visionary Art.

I knew nothing about Professor Fuchs before I came here, but I get the sense that his life would make an amazing movie (of Jewish background during the Nazi occupation; baptism into the Roman Catholic church; acceptance into an Art Academy at 15; years of poverty followed by international recognition; fortune gained, lost, and regained; life in Paris, Israel, US, etc; devotion to Jewish-Christian understanding and many commissions by the church; 16 children from 7 women, and so much more) . Recognized by Salvador Dali as his Austrian counterpart, Fuchs has created a plethora of work in his 83 years – drawings, paintings, sculpture, music, architecture, etc. I certainly didn’t have a sense of it all before our visit. All I really knew is that he had developed a unique style of painting mixing egg tempura with oil paints over white (that I will be learning in the next 2 months), and had passed down his knowledge to several students who will be our teachers. I’ve occasionally seen him as he drops into our classroom, but his memory/ health have been affected by age and he hasn’t really interacted with us much. Still, knowing a bit more about his work and his life after this visit has increased my understanding and desire to learn. Although I don’t resonate with much of his subject matter or paintings in general (I resonate much more to the work of his students / my teachers), I can’t ignore the mastery of colour and technique and am in awe of the scope of his work. I know that when I start painting, I can be pretty prolific, but none of my work is as detailed and obviously time-consuming as this… I simply can’t imagine how he accomplished so much in one lifetime- and he’s got work all over the world, some of massive scale. Simply amazing!

These are two examples of his drawing from his time at in art academy, where he was accepted at the age of 15.

The villa itself was designed by famous Austrian architect Otto Wagner in 1888. When Fuchs was a young child, he told his mother he would buy it for her one day … and he did. She spent the last decades of her life there after Fuchs saved the building from disrepair in 1973 . The house itself is amazing to see – I’m not sure how many of the details are Wagner’s and how many are Fuchs’ as he pretty well designed everything in and around it, so I’ve simply created one large gallery of my visit there. As you’ll see, the artwork is certainly not limited to framed pieces on the walls. Enjoy your virtual visit of the Fuchs Villa. Click on the first image to see it large and to proceed through the whole gallery at that size if you prefer.