Eduardo Schlageter
Eduardo Schlageter | |
|---|---|
| File:Schlageter self portrait.jpg Self portrait by Schlageter, (1919). | |
| Born | Eduardo Schlageter Singre |
| Nationality | Venezuelan |
| Known for | Painting |
 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (January 2010) |
Eduardo Schlageter (Caracas, Miranda, 15 November 1893 — Caracas, 21 August 1974) was a Venezuelan-German painter.
Biography
His parents were Pius Schlageter and Laura Singre, who met in Germany and got married. After that the couple moved to Venezuela in 1893 from the Grand Duchy of Baden where they were living. The reason of the family's move was because the government of the Venezuelan president Antonio Guzmán Blanco contracted Pius to assume de general direction of the Venezuelan National Imprent, because he was a widely known lithographer.
Eduardo Schalgeter was born November 17, 1893 in Caracas, Venezuela and as soon as he reached the right age, he was sent to the Venezuelan German School in Caracas, were he studied until he was 8 years old. Then, Eduardo was sent to Germany to study in a school until he finished high school. All over the school and high school years, he often traveled in his vacations to Venezuela to join his family, and in 1913 he decided to continue his superior studies in the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, but in 1914, the First World War interrupted his studies, and he went back to Venezuela.
In Venezuela he will join the family's lithographic business and soon he will enter in contact with the most prominent artist and painters of the time, between the ones were Raúl Santana and Leoncio Martinez, the later founders of the Fine Arts Circle of Venezuela. In 1915 he will move back to Europe were he will study in Switzerland, country he chose because of its neutrality before the war. He studied in the Geneva's fine arts academy were he his teachers Ferdinand Hodler and Edouard Ravel deeply influenced his style and interests.
In 1917 he moves to Paris after Ravel's advicement, and soon rises between the local painters. A couple of years later in 1921 he moves definitely to Venezuela, were he will continue with his carrier as a painter and work with his father in the family buisness. He will make several portraits including one of the vice president of Venezuela Juan Crisóstomo Gómez and many of other privates.
Eduardo Schlageter married a wealthy lady, Carmen Boulton Pietri in March 1929, and from that marriage were born four children. And in the decade between 1930 and 1940 he continued painting Venezuelan landscapes and received both French and Venezuelan condecorations. In 1942 he traveled to the Marcy Gallery in New York as represetative of a Venezuelan art comitee and exhibited his creations, earning a lot of prestige.
In 1950 he suffered a heart attack and after this, all the years he traveled for therapy to the thermal baths in Bad Gastein, Germany, where he kept creating more waterpaintings. After he retired in 1963 from the general directive of the family company, he kept traveling to Germany frequently and elaborating expositions both in Venezuela and in Europe about his paintings. During the decade of the 1960s he and his family donated a terrain for the construction of the Universidad Metropolitana (Metropolitan University) in Caracas which was founded in 1970.
In 1972 he suffered several heart attacks, and his health was seriously debilitated after this, affecting him and his work, and two years later he died at the age of 81 on August 21, 1974 in Caracas.
References
- Parra, J. I. Eduardo Schlageter, Obra Pictorica Caracas Venezuela (1993). Fundación Schlageter. Caracas, Venezuela.
