Emil FuchsMVO (9 August 1866 – 13 January 1929) was an Austrian–American sculptor,
medallist, painter, and author[1] who worked in
Vienna, London and New York. He painted portraits of
Queen Victoria and
Edward VII and was fashionable among London
high society in the early 20th century.[2][3][4][5]
From 1897 to 1915 his address was in London where he regularly met with the artist
Lawrence Alma-Tadema.[3][4] He had been mainly a sculptor and medallist, but he began oil painting, especially portraiture in oils, in 1897; his early mentor was
John Singer Sargent. He exhibited works at the
Royal Academy of Arts in 1898 and he taught there.[2][7] He worked on commissions including portraits for
Queen Victoria and
Edward VII, and his portraits became fashionable among various patrons from the
aristocracy and
high society.[2][3][4][5] He was honoured with the
Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1909.[8] While in England he was employed by the
Birmingham Mint.[5] By 1905 he had been teaching at Paris, Berlin,
Munich, Vienna, and Rome and was making winter trips to the United States.[4][7]
United States
Fuchs began going to the United States in 1905, primarily to paint portraits of wealthy socialites. In 1915 during
World War I, "a wave of anti-German sentiment" swept England so, to escape it he moved permanently to New York,[9] producing more works there and offering assistance with the
war effort. He became a
US citizen in 1924. He had surgery for cancer in 1928, and in anticipation of a death with great suffering he shot himself at the Hotel des Artistes in New York on 13 January 1929, aged 62.[3][4][10] His will created a foundation which put his art on view as a permanent exhibit, and for this he left $500,000 plus artworks to the public.[11]
Fuchs, Emil, The work of Emil Fuchs; illustrating some of his representative paintings, sculpture, medals and studies. "Issued on the occasion of an exhibition of his works under the auspices of Messrs. Cartier, February 7th to March 5th, 1921." (New York city, 1921)[21]
Fuchs, Emil, With Pencil, Brush and Chisel: The life of an artist (Putnam NY, 1925)
ISBN9781406776621.[3]
Simmons, William, "Emil Fuchs and Etching," in The Print Connoisseur (1929).[22]
References
^Fuchs, Emil, With Pencil, Brush, and Chisel: The life of an Artist, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, The Knickerbocker Press, 1925
^
abcdefghijkQuoted on Tate website: Retrieved 10 November 2013. Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.227–8
^
abcdefHerne Bay Press (defunct newspaper of
Herne Bay, Kent, England) 12 July 1913
^Evert, Marlyn and Vernon Gay, photographs, Discovering Pittsburgh's Sculpture, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1983 p. 31, 407
^Dearinger, David Bernard, Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design (Hudson Hills for National Academy of Design, U.S., 2004)
ISBN9781555950293