Alfon Zeileis 1887 - 1916
Alfons Zeileis was born on 31 July 1987 as the son of the Royal Bavarian Expeditor, Mr Augustin Zeileis and his wife Maria née Lutz at Hafenlohr. In the Vollmer Künstlerlexikon, his birthplace is erroneously named as "Hasenlohr". In the Fraktur script, the f and the s are only a small slash apart. The family must have already been living in Würzburg when Alfons Zeileis was enrolled in school in 1893, as evidenced by a baptismal certificate sent to the family's Würzburg address by Pastor Herberich from Hafenlohr.
The available documents show that Alfons had two brothers and two sisters. From 1897 to 1904, Alfons attended the humanistic grammar school in Würzburg.
Let us let Alfons Zeileis speak for himself in his letter to Professor Heiner Dickreiter, the director of the Städtische Galerie Würzburg:
My personal preference turned very early to painting with watercolours and pastels, which did not exactly enhance my other achievements at the Hum. Gymnasium (1897 - 1904). For my professional training I attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Nuremberg from 1904 to 1906, with the aim of becoming a drawing teacher at secondary schools.
There I was particularly influenced by Prof. Beck-Gran, who died at an early age, and who encouraged my soon awakened inclination towards free artistic activity and advised me to attend the Munich Academy, initially Professor Hackl's drawing class.
The first years in Munich were probably the happiest ever. After passing my exams in 1908, I continued my studies at the Academy, albeit without sufficient means. Smaller scholarships and prizes from the academy, as well as occasional commissions and sales, could not prevent hunger from often being my guest.
Differences in the awarding of the commission to paint the apse of the Munich chapel of the study home of the Missionary Benedictines brought me into contact with Prof. Becker-Gundahl. At that time he had received an appointment at the Academy to lead a drawing and composing class. I became his first "composer student" for 5 semesters.
The chapel was later rebuilt, so that my work in it was lost and not even a photograph of it exists.
After an interruption, which was devoted to landscape studies as well as work for a living, Prof. Ludwig Herterich gave me another opportunity to work from models in his painting school in 1913/14.
The outbreak of the First World War, in which I volunteered for the war, also ended this time of ideal striving and unbroken faith, even if it was a meagre one. What remains is my grateful attachment to my teachers, especially the last-named ones, who I have never forgotten.
What remains is my gratitude for their never wavering conviction of my talent and their sympathy for my personal fate. Many talented fellow students who held me in high esteem are also unforgettable.
The First World War made a deep cut in my artistic activity. The military training and the subsequent field service placed great demands on my weakened organism, so that there was no longer any possibility for artistic activity.
Even in various military hospitals, apart from a few courtesy portraits, nothing lasting was created.
In the summer of 1916 I was appointed as a drawing teacher at the "Realanstalt am Donnersberg" in the Palatinate, and in April 1920 I was appointed as a teacher at the Humanistic Grammar School in Neustadt a.d. Haardt, after I had found my partner in the Palatinate in 1918.
From then on, my work as an art teacher naturally took up a considerable part of my ability. Nevertheless, I always remained at work. Colour, in particular, was always a major part of my efforts, especially in landscape, still life and portraiture.
The ideal of large-figure, figurative composition, which I had in mind from my youth, was also repeatedly tackled in sketches.
So much for Alfons Zeileis about himself
Birgit Jooss writes in 2010 in "Die Digitale Edition der Matrikelbücher der Akademie der Bildenden Künste München": "The Academy of Fine Arts Munich celebrated its bicentenary in 2008. To this day, it is one of the most important training centres for visual artists in Europe.
Especially during its "Glory Days" in the second half of the 19th century, it was, along with Paris, the art academy par excellence. Like no other, it attracted students from America, northern, central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. It was especially important for Polish, Czech and Hungarian artists."
In her diploma thesis, Birgit Jooss, together with other students, digitised the matriculation books of the Academy of Fine Arts Munich from 1808-1920. The matriculation books are accessible at https://matrikel.adbk.de/.
These matriculation books show that Alfons Zeileis entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich on 27.10.1906 in the drawing school of v. Hackl. He was 19 years old at the time and thus not yet of age. His place of residence is given as Würzburg, his parents' status as K. Oberexpeditor.
According to the register, the following fellow students began their studies with him in Professor v. Hackl's drawing class (some of the following links lead to German language websites):
- Emil Scheller from Lenzburg in Switzerland, later lived in Solothurn. His works were in great demand in the 1930s and 1940s..
- Fritz Pfeiffer from Fulda, who according to the book "Der Kunstmaler Fritz Pfeiffer (1878-1953)" by Gregor K Stasch became one of the most important artists in Fulda in the first half of the 20th century. He was friends with the next fellow student, Giorgio de Chirico
- Giorgio De Chirico, an Italian painter, sculptor and graphic artist who later became the main exponent of Pittura metafisica, so-called Metaphysical Painting, which is considered one of the most important precursors of Surrealism.
- Karl von Blaas from Vienna, who according to the data must be identical with Carl Theodor Ritter von Blaas, a popular portrait painter of the Austrian high aristocracy in his time, who received the Golden Laurel of the Künstlerhaus in 1956.
- Markos Zavitsianos from Corfu Greece, who returned to Corfu in 1911 and founded the "Socialist Club of Corfu" together with the writer Konstantinos Theotokis. In 1912 he exhibited his work at the Zappeion in Athens and was shown in Greece, Paris and Berlin. He died much too early in 1923 at the age of only 39.
- Stavros Katzikis from Athens Greece, who returned to Greece after graduating and painted battle scenes during the Balkan Wars from 1912 to 1913. His landscapes celebrated Expressionism. In 1929 he was appointed teacher at the "Public School of Crafts and Professions", newly founded in 1927 and donated by the patron Vasilis Sivitanidis from Alexandria, Egypt. His paintings are kept and exhibited in the Municipal Gallery of Larissa, in the Municipal Gallery of Yannina and in private collections.
- Walter Bollier from Zurich went to the Academy in Munich after 5 years at the Zurich Gewerbeschule and Kunstgewerbeschule and one year at the Academy in Florence. From 1910 he worked independently in Zurich. Since 1908 he has been represented at exhibitions of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft.
- Alexander Nogradi from Budapest, Hungary
- Boris Binenbaum from Sofia, Bulgaria
- Matthias Göttinger from Munich
No traceable information can be found on the internet about the last three fellow students. Either they were not successful, or they suffered the fate of a famous fellow student who had also been a pupil of Gabriel von Hackl since 1901 and who was killed far too early in the war at Verdun in 1916: Franz Marc.
In this international, high-calibre environment, Alfons Zeileis studied in Hackl's drawing class, Marr's and Herterich's painting class and Becker-Gundahl's composition class.
In view of the quality of his fellow students, his awards, which he received at the academy and which were endowed with a sum of money, cannot be held in high enough esteem:
- 19 July 1907 for drawing studies
- 16 July 1914 for painting studies
- 1910/11 for "Surrogate Image"
- 1913/14 for a group from the Deluge
Alfons Zeileis' activities in the Dachau artists' colony are documented between 1907 and 1913. The influence of Dachau painters such as Ludwig Dill on his paintings is unmistakable. To earn money, Alfons Zeileis worked at the Royal Bavarian Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg from July to November 1912. Alfons Zeileis was not alone in this activity. The famous painter Auguste Renoir also worked as a porcelain painter, for 3 years for the manufactory in Sèvres. The Austrian painter Friedrich Sturm was also a porcelain painter.
In 1913, Alfons Zeileis took part in a collective exhibition at the Neuer Kunstsalon in Munich. Alongside Alfons Zeileis, paintings by Egon Adler, who was close to the Blauer Reiter, the Rhenish Expressionist Karl Mense, the Dresdner graphic artist Walter Rehn and the American painter Albert Bloch, who was also close to the Blauer Reiter, were exhibited there.
On 20.8.1914, Alfons Zeileis volunteered for military service. This took him to the military hospital as early as 16.06.1915. When he was discharged from the hospital on 15.06.1916, Alfons Zeileis had to decide what to do next.