Alfred Kubin  

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Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin (April 10, 1877August 20, 1959) was an Austrian visual artist of macabre and fantastic art, as well as an occasional and often dystopian writer. A number of artists take inspiration in Kubin’s work: Roland Topor, Arnulf Reiner, Franz Blaas, Joe Coleman, Francis Bacon and Joel-Peter Witkin.

Biography

Kubin was of Czech ancestry, he was born in Bohemia in the town of Leitmeritz, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. From 1898 to 1901, Kubin studied at the art school Schmitt Reutte and at the Munich Academy. He produced a small number of oil paintings in the years between 1902 and 1910, but thereafter his output consisted of pen and ink drawings, watercolors, and lithographs.

In 1912, he became associated with the Blaue Reiter group. Although often considered a representative of Expressionism, noted for dark, spectral, symbolic fantasies (often assembled into thematic series of drawings), his work is sui generis.

Like Oskar Kokoschka, Kubin had both artistic and literary talent. He illustrated works by Edgar Allan Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Fyodor Dostoevsky and others. He was also the author of several books, the best known being his novel Die Andere Seite (The Other Side) (1909).

His literary works also include:

  • The Looking Box, 1925;
  • Of the Desk of a Draughtsman, 1939;
  • Adventure of an Indication Feather/Spring, 1941;
  • Sober Balladen, 1949;
  • Evening-red, 1950;
  • Fantasies in the Boehmerwald, 1951;
  • Daemons and Night Faces, 1959 (autobiography).

From 1906 until his death, he lived a withdrawn life in a twelfth century castle in Zwickledt. Kubin was awarded the Great Austrian State Prize in 1951, and the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art in 1957.

References

  • Die Andere Seite. ISBN 3-499-13771-2
  • A. Marks, the Illustrator A.Kubin, union catalog of his illustrations and book-artistic work, 1978
  • G. of Zon, Word and Picture, 1991; Upper Austrian national gallery (Hg), A. Kubin 1877-1959, 1995 (with list of works)
  • P. Assmann and A. Hoberg, A. Kubin, art relations, 1995; A. Hoberg and Ith angel man, A.Kubin - the lithographic work, 1999; New German Biographie.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Alfred Kubin" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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