On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the death of the architect Prof. Dr. Clemens Holzmeister's pictures are presented in the elementary school he built himself in Jenbach.

The exhibition begins on June 28, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

For the first time, his graphic and painterly works are presented in a school for creative and educational purposes.

Architect and artist - a few biographical data

After the completion of the crematorium built according to his designs next to the Vienna Central Cemetery (Feuerhalle Simmering), which is considered Holzmeister's breakthrough as an architect, he was appointed professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1924, which he held until 1938. Through the mediation of Mehmet Hamdi Bey, he was called to Ankara in 1927 with the order to build the Turkish Ministry of War. Clemens Holzmeister was also head of a master studio at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1928 to 1933 with a studio in the Eiskellerberg. From 1932 to 1938 he was President of the Central Association of Architects and the New Austrian Werkbund. One of his students during this time in Vienna was Alfons Fritz.

Unlike Alois "Luis" Trenker, who had also studied architecture at the Technical University in Vienna after graduating and then worked as an architect in Bozen in an office run jointly with Clemens Holzmeister, Holzmeister was dismissed from the Vienna Academy in 1938 and emigrated to Istanbul-Tarabya in Turkey.

At the beginning of the authoritarian corporate state, Holzmeister was a member of the State Council from 1934 to 1938. In 1934/1935 he was a member of the Vienna City Council for Art.

In the cultural department of the Fatherland Front he headed the working group on fine arts. During this time he was involved in all major construction projects in Austria.

In 1934 he received the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Art and Science and was thus one of three personalities who possessed the decoration of the federal state and that of the Second Republic of Austria (now, however, "Honor of Honor for Science and Art").

From 1938 he worked as an emigrated teacher at the Technical University in Istanbul. He was highly honoured in Turkey and built a palatial villa as his new residence. In 1939 he separated from his first wife Judith.

He married Gunda Lexer in Turkish exile, who gave birth to his daughter Barbara in Athens.

In 1939 he spent six months in Brazil completing commissions before returning to Tyrol. His further teaching activities at the Technical University in Istanbul lasted from 1940 to 1949.

In 1947 Holzmeister moved to Ankara and from then on commuted between Vienna and Ankara until he finally returned to Vienna in 1954.

He received the Grand Austrian State Prize in 1953. From 1955 to 1957 he was rector at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1957 he received the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art and the City of Vienna Prize for Architecture. In 1963 he received an honorary doctorate from Istanbul Technical University. For his 85th birthday he went on a study trip to Turkey.

Clemens Holzmeister was an important creator of monumental and sacred buildings. He developed a reinterpretation of local building traditions between simplicity and expressiveness. He also built monuments and stage sets. In the parish church of Fulpmes, a holy grave can be admired at Easter, which Holzmeister had made in 1954 in the stage workshops of the Salzburg Festival.

Now his graphic and painterly works are being presented to the public for the first time.

The exhibition begins on June 28, 2023 at 10 a.m. in the elementary school in Jenbach

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