Georg Decker

Georg Decker (7 December 1818 – 13 February 1894) was an Austro-Hungarian portrait artist.

Georg Decker
Born(1818-12-07)7 December 1818
Pest, Kingdom of Hungary
Died13 February 1894(1894-02-13) (aged 75)
Vienna, Austria
NationalityAustro-Hungarian
Alma materAcademy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Known forPortrait art
AwardsKnight's Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph
Patron(s)Franz Joseph I of Austria
For the German printer of this name, see Georg Decker (printer).
Franz Joseph I of Austria, by Decker
Decker's Empress Elizabeth of Austria
Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, portrait by Decker c. 1850
Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, by Decker, after Einsle

Decker was born in Hungary to a German-speaking family, and grew up and made his career in Vienna, where he taught painting as well as working as a portrait and historical artist. Thanks to his teaching, he was sometimes referred to as Herr Professor Georg Decker.

Appointed as a knight of the Order of Franz Joseph,[1] Decker has been called "a renowned portraitist of Vienna's highest society".[2]

Life

Decker was one of the sons of the artist Johann Stephan Decker and the brother of the artists Albert (1817–1871) and Gabriel Decker (1821–1855). He was born in Pest, in the Kingdom of Hungary, but in 1821 the Decker family moved to the imperial city of Vienna, where he grew up and was taught to draw and paint in watercolour and miniature by his father.[3] As early as 1835, a drawing by Georg Decker of the composer Wenzel Müller was lithographed by F. Wolf.[4] He began to exhibit watercolours in 1837 and in the early 1840s was accepted as a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he learnt to paint in oils. After that, Decker painted portraits in oils, and then from the 1850s also in pastels, having studied the work of Mengs and Liotard in Dresden and been captivated by the medium. Great success in this field soon followed.[3] By 1860, Decker was conducting a private art school and in 1861 became a member of the Vienna Künstlerhaus.[5]

Outside the world of art, Decker was an active member of the Vienna Chess Company (Wiener Schachgesellschaft) while Albert Salomon Anselm von Rothschild was its driving force.[2]

In 1851 Decker married Ottilie von Sobek, who died in 1860.[5] In 1861 he married secondly Josefine Helene von Lucam (1829–1914).[6]

On his son's name day on 17 April 1869, the Emperor Franz Joseph presented the ten-year old Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, with a portrait of Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen, victor of Aspern, by Decker.[7] In 1872, the Emperor rewarded Decker's achievements in art by giving him the Knight's Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph.[1]

When Decker died in 1894, the city of Vienna acquired a large number of sketches and portrait lithographs from his estate.[8] He was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery, and in 1909 a street in the Meidling district of Vienna was named Deckergasse in his honour, the mayor's year-book describing him as "the outstanding Viennese painter (hervorragenden Wiener Maler) Georg Decker" and noting that Deckergasse was near Canalettogasse.[9] The Deckergasse crosses the Wilhelmsdorfer Park, which is also known as the Decker Park.[10]

Selected works
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References
  1. Morgen-Post Wien, 27 November 1872 (p. 579)
  2. Fabrizio Zavatarelli, Ignaz Kolisch: The Life and Chess Career (2015), p. 280
  3. "Decker, Georg", in Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker, eds. Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 8: (Leipzig: Coutan–Delattre, 1912), p. 522
  4. Constantin von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich: Moll—Mysliveczek (1868), p. 413
  5. Führer durch die Gemälde-galerie Volume 3 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1897), p. 209
  6. Heinz Schöny, Wiener Künstler-Ahnen: Genealogische Daten u. Ahnenlisten Wiener Maler, Volume 2, Selbstverl. d. Heraldisch-Genealog. Ges. "Adler," 1975, p. 12
  7. "Wien, 20 April", in Neues Wiener Tagblatt: demokratisches Organ, 20 April 1869 (p. 241, column 1) [in German]
  8. Die Gemeindeverwaltung der Stadt Wien (Vienna, 1898), p. 604
  9. Die Gemeinde-Verwaltung der k.k. Reichshaupt- und Residenzstadt Wien (Vienna Bürgermeister, 1910), p. 119
  10. Maria Auböck, Gisa Ruland, Grün in Wien: ein Führer zu den Gärten, Parks und Landschaften der Stadt (Falter, 1994), pp. 187–188
  11. Ulrich A Schöndorfer, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff (1958), p. 74
  12. Das Heeresgeschichtliche Museum in Wien (Vienna: H. Böhlaus. 1960), p. 57
  13. Die Österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild, Volume 3 (K.K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1887), p. 251
  14. Manfried Rauchensteiner, Manfred Litscher, Das Heeresgeschichtliche Museum in Wien (Vienna: Verlag Styria, 2000, ISBN 3-222-12834-0), p. 48
  15. John P. Evans, A Quite Remarkable Man (2014), p. 288
  16. Adolf Kirschner, Erinnerungen an Goethes Ulrike und an die Familie von Levetzow-Rauch (1904)

Further reading
  • Constantin von Wurzbach: "Decker, Georg", in Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, Part 3 (Vienna, 1858), p. 194
  • Felix Czeike, ed. "Decker Georg" in Historisches Lexikon Wien, vol. 2, De—Gy (Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2), pp. 1 & 2
  • Franziska Schmid, "Decker, Georg" in Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 3 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2), p. 545

See also
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