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 Emmy
Hiesleitner-Singer
Pictures from a Time
Gone By – Homesteads, Villages, Landscapes
Published in cooperation with the
Styrian Joanneum State Museum in Graz
by Ernst Lasnik and Peter Strnad
ISBN 3-85365-211-5
243 pictures printed on 224 pages
20 x 23 cm, hardcover
29.90 Euros; 52.20 Swiss Francs
Verlag für Sammler
Available for purchase in bookstores in Austria, Switzerland and Germany
(ISBN Number) or direct from "Verlag fuer Sammler"
in the
Leopold Stocker publishing house in Graz, Austria, or
at amazon.at or amazon.de.
Who was Emmy Hiesleitner-Singer (1884 - 1980)
?
In
2005, a special part of this artist’s work was
made public: her historical farm drawings and paintings from the first half
of the last century. The Steirische Volkskundemuseum (Styrian Folk Museum,
Styrian Ethnographic Museum) in Graz, Austria owns an archive with more than
100 of her works. The collection comprises pencil, crayon, charcoal and
chalk drawings, and pen drawings as well as etchings
and several oil paintings. The collection’s 55 most beautiful works from the
Steiermark region (Styria) in Austria were presented at a special exhibition
in spring 2005 in Graz (curator: Dr. Jutta Trafoier).
Until recently, ten were on display in the southern Hungarian town of Pecs.
At around the same time, graphics from her extensive collection of landscape
paintings were on display at the Neue Gallerie in Graz (curator: Dr. Peter
Peer).
In her lifetime Emmy Hiesleitner-Singer received more
then ten distinctions and awards by regional and federal institutions. For
her works over 20 considerably large exhibitions were staged. Since her
death in 1980 six special exhibitions had been organized, now having been
topped by two more in 2005.
On the 25th anniversary of the artist’s death
on May 12, 2005 - Ernst Lasnik and Peter Strnad, in cooperation with the
Styrian Joanneum State Museum, completed a book about Emmy
Hiesleitner-Singer. The book was presented in the artist’s birthplace of
Voitsberg, in the western part of the Steiermark region (Styria) in Austria.
The book contains 243 pictures printed on 224 pages and was produced by a
small printer in the Lavanttal valley in the Austrian state Kärnten
(Carinthia), who specializes in art reproduction.
In this book
four specialized authors cover the most important parts and
accomplishments of the artist’s life. Herbert Pöttler, the founder of the
Österreichisches Freilichtmuseum (Austrian Open-Air Museum) in Stübing near
Graz, presents approximately 80 sketches of historical farm drawings from
the Volkskundemuseum (Styrian Folk Museum, Styrian Ethnographic Museum) in
Graz and the Landwirtschaftliche collection in the Castle of Stainz. Ernst
Lasnik presents village views beyond the borders of Styria as well as
selected illustrations by the artist from “Kinder- und Hausmärchen“ by
Viktor Geramb and “Steirisches Bilderbuch” by Hans Kloepfer. Peter Peer
discusses her complete work in the context of art in her time,
particularly landscape painting, with examples from middle, southern and
southeastern Europe. He also goes into her extensive training in Graz and
Vienna, Austria, as well as in Berlin, Dachau and especially in Munich,
Germany. At the end, Peter Strnad sheds light on the life and personality of
Emmy Hiesleitner-Singer on the basis of unpublished documents and letters.
Another source of information came from the Geramb Archive at the University
of Graz and from the inventory of the Austrian Ethnographic Museum in
Kittsee in Burgenland, for whose opening exhibition in 1973 the artist
provided numerous sketches and pictures from her travels in southeastern
Europe.
The book is well suited as a winter gift. It contains
several snow scenes as well as a pen drawing of a starry
night over the Antonius church by the Graz Volkskundemuseum, where
shepherd and crèche songs from Styria have been and
still are performed every year since 1916. The book’s many pictures and
their short, language-independent captions (together with a foreign language
summary on the Internet), make it an ideal gift for people who are not fluent in German.
Christine Godwin
 The
last cover page shows the artist at work doing a watercolor sketch
of the old homestead "Krienzerhof" close to Semriach in Styria.
Summary in German.
Summary in French.
Summary in Hungarian.
Summary in Italian.
Summary in Slovenian.
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