Ernst Fuchs biography

Ernst Fuchs was an Austrian artist and one of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. He was born in 1930 in Vienna to a Jewish family. Forced to study at home due to racial laws, after the end of World War II, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts where he met artists Arik Brauer, Rudolf Hausner, Wolfgang Hutter, and Anton Lehmdenma with whom he would found Fantastic Realism. After completing his studies, he began an intense period of travel and collaborations. In 1947, he went to Italy where he met Giorgio de Chirico and Felice Casorati. In 1949, he went to Paris, where he came into contact with surrealism and met Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Cocteau, and especially Salvador Dalí. He also traveled to the United States where in 1953 he met Peggy Guggenheim. Finally, in 1956, he went to Israel where he converted to Catholicism and stayed for more than a year. During his stay, he lived in the Basilica of the Dormition of Mary where he began painting his largest canvas The Last Supper. It was during this period that he began to focus on religious themes and accepted to paint the triptych The Mysteries of the Holy Rosary for the Rosenkranzkirche church in Hetzendorf, Vienna.
In 1961, he returned to Vienna and in 1972 purchased the villa that belonged to Otto Wagner to make it his studio. He renovated it to serve as a museum and, at the same time, as his residence, opening it to the public in 1988.
Not only a painter, Ernst Fuchs began working as a theater set designer, architect, designer, writer, and musician. Unfortunately, his prolific artistic production came to a halt in 2009 due to some physical problems that prevented him from using his right arm. Ernst Fuchs passed away in Vienna in 2015.