Franz Karl Basler-Kopp

Franz Karl Basler - Kopp ( born February 17, 1879 in Basel, † April 1, 1937 in Lucerne ) was a German painter and draftsman, who lived in Switzerland. In addition to works with biblical and historical scenes, highly symbolic representations of stations of life and the literature he created especially an extensive tales and legends work.

He was besides Known as " Fairy Tales Painters " especially with the drawings for three volumes Swiss legends of Arnold Büchli (1926, 1928 and 1931 ) as well as with the illustration and the book jewelry to several, partly for literary and musical education in schools created books, as the read-aloud book and theater Easter Bunny, Saint Nicolas, Christmas and New Year by Eduard Fischer (1926 ) and the storybook on Märchenbrunnen by Helene Kopp.

Life

Franz Karl Basler was born into a peasant family from South Baden. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Lucerne, where Basel grew up in poverty. His concise with six years of primary school education, he compensated later by intensive reading wide-ranging literature, from which he almost always involved the motives for his work. During his school days lost much of his right hand due to an infection their ability to function. Basel became the lefties.

From 1893 to 1898 he attended the Department for glass painting at the School of Art Lucerne. He felt, however, more attracted to painting on canvas and paper, to which he devoted himself throughout his free time. After training Basel visited no schools and sought no contacts with colleagues. He remained all his life a reclusive loner. In 1905 he married Julia Kopp, the daughter of the rector of the city schools Lucerne. In her he found a companion, the narrowest portion of his life fighting, and took especially during the long, late years a serious illness.

1912 and 1914 he traveled twice to study visits to Munich. On the occasion of the first trip, he participated in an exhibition in Munich, after which he got by Ferdinand Avenarius, the head of the " Kunstwart ", an invitation to the publication of some images. This was also the beginning of a friendship that lasted until the death of Avenarius 1923, and during which the two exchanged about art care and the relationship between art and people, and their mutual alienation.

In the years 1910-1919, Basler took a year, but only a few works, first at the National Art Exhibitions, then to those in the Kunsthaus Zurich. As a result, but he withdrew almost completely back from the exhibition business. In 1931, encouraged by his friends and organized by the Museum of Art Lucerne, he went in the old War and Peace Museum once again with 70 paintings and drawings to the public.

Regular buyers for his pictures had Basler few. One of them is the ETH professor Adolf Tobler, who bought a set of images for his villa at Zurich mountain, which today, under a protected Art Nouveau villa Tobler. In 1922 and 1923 he also allows him two trips to Germany, except that in both cases also led him to Dresden and Hamburg to the North Sea, where he put his house on Sylt Avenarius available. Both of these trips have in many Nordic motifs, including strangers - found their homecoming precipitation.

His artistic freedom meant everything Basler, without regard to questions of existence. So he turned down an offer of Munich Flying leaves to take up the post of a fairy tale illustrator at them from. But for the publisher Sauerland he was regularly involved over several years. Especially known for his illustrations were three volumes Swiss legends of Arnold Büchli, a work that traces left in his painting, for example in witches holster.

As an artist was Basler a late -born romantics that it drove to the continuation of the artistic elements found her great fulfillment in Spitzweg, Welti, Böcklin, a storyteller and illustrator who created a myth and legends working very own sensation, trusting in the pictorial power of folk poetry.

He lived his last years, unconcerned by the artistic spirit of the times, from which his own work more and more alienated, facing only his art and his friends and engaging in questions of art care, and performs a true hermit life. Franz Karl Basler - Kopp took, have long been suffering from a serious illness, on 1 April 1937, the life.

Works

• The witches halter, chalk on paper, Museum of Art Lucerne
• Strangers - Homecoming, oil on copper, Museum of Art Lucerne
• The Black Spider, chalk on paper, Museum of Art Lucerne
• Before the gate, pastel on cardboard, Museum of Art Lucerne