THEODOR VON HORMANN
(Austrian 1840-1895)

AVAILABLE WORKS

Born in 1840 in Tyrol, Austria, Theodor von Hörmann pursued a military career from the age of 15. He served with the Austrian Army during the Sardinian War of 1859, followed by the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. He rose to become a senior lieutenant officer working at military schools as an instructor for gymnastics, fencing and freehand drawing in Vienna and later at St. Pölten. He was mainly self taught, first copying colour prints in 1869 before turning to oil. From 1872, at the age of 33, he began studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Eduard von Lichtenfels and later Anselm Feuerbach, alongside fellow students Hugo Darnaut and Hugo Charlemont. During this period Hörmann met the important Austrian landscape painter Emil Jacob Schindler with whom he would continue to correspond.

Resigning from military service, in 1884 Hörmann became a freelance artist and the same year married Laura Bertuch in Vienna. He undertook many study trips, took part in exhibitions and joined the Wiener Künstlerhaus. At the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873 he encountered the French Impressionists, which encouraged him to travel to France. The couple rented a studio in Paris in 1886, the hub of European art at the time and studied under Raphael Collin until 1889 after which he travelled to Bretagne, the Channel Islands and Barbizon. He studied modern French painting and traced the steps of the plein-air painters of the Barbizon school, working to capture the atmosphere at certain times of the day.

Returning from France, from 1890-1894 the couple spent their summers in the town of Znaim (or Znojmo), a walled town in the winemaking region of South Moravia, Czech Republic. This was an important time in the artist’s life, when his colours became richer and more powerful capturing the atmosphere and sparkling light in the countryside.

Hörmann travelled to Munich and Dachau where he was introduced to the lively artists’ colony. During this time he was influenced by Munich Secessionist ideas and would subsequently become an advocate for the movement. He submitted paintings for exhibition at the Vienna Künstlerhaus in 1891 which were not well received, then travelled to Dachau I 1892 to show at the Kunstverein in Munich, and in 1893 38 of his paintings were exhibited at the Vienna Künstlerhaus.

Theodor von Hörmann spent the last three years of his life living in Vienna. In 1894 he travelled with fellow artists to Sicily and Venice, and returning to Vienna rented a studio in the Neuer Markt area. In 1895 he painted “Neuer Markt in Vienna” which is considered the culmination of his artistic career. The artist’s dreams of a state gallery for modern Viennese art, later realized by the Secessionists, was cut short by illness and he died on July 1, 1895 at the age of 54 from a throat tumor. He is buried in an honourary grave in Vienna’s central cemetery. The same year a memorial exhibition and sale with 234 paintings was held by his estate, the “Freunde des Künstlerhauses”, with a portion of the proceeds going to create a foundation for young artists. He is considered by some to be the founding father of the early modern art Vienna Secession movement as he was the first to put into practice and enforce their ideals.