Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The exhibition of Wilhelm Schneider was opened on Sunday, May 12, 1935, at 11 a.m. in the Karlovy Vary Art Hall (today's Karlovy Vary Art Gallery). It was a large retrospective intended to commemorate and celebrate the work of this local artist and included more than eighty artworks. Most of them were by Wilhelm Schneider, but there were also works by his sons, Oswald and Maximilian Schneider.

Wilhelm Schneider was born in Karlovy Vary on May 30, 1864 into the family of Anton Schneider, a town clerk. Despite his father's early death, his mother managed to send the seventeen-year-old Wilhelm to Munich to study painting. There, he studied with Professor Strähuber and Karl von Piloty. However, having developed a “baroque sense of intoxication with colour” [Weinmann 1987, p. 171], he later went to Vienna, where he became a student of Hans Makart.

He found artistic refuge in Karlovy Vary in a building called Hubertusburg, where he rented a large hall from the town in 1900. Over time, it became the artist's studio, the summer home of his family, and the place where his sons Josef, Oswald and Max were introduced to drawing and painting. Hubertusburg is situated at the foot of a wooded hill named Tři kříže (Three Crosses). Although it was a very suitable place for artistic work, its size became a problem in the cold season, and so the artist and his family did not spend winters there. After Wilhelm's death, everything in the studio remained as he had left it until 1946. The space was filled with paintings, painting tools, decorations and furniture. Since the Schneiders were Germans, they were subject to the postwar Beneš Decrees: Their property was confiscated, including the works of art they had created.

In the spring of 1946, the objects in the apartment and studio were secured and inventoried, and everything was transferred to the local museum and stored in what is now the Art Gallery. We even know the exact number of paintings, including dimensions, techniques and a short description. The history of the Schneider family in Karlovy Vary ends at Easter 1946, when Isabella Schneider and her eldest daughter Antonia were deported.

Wilhelm Schneider was a versatile painter, a skilled portraitist and landscape painter. He accepted almost any commission. However, in addition to working on commission, he often created art for his own personal enjoyment and that of his family members. At the time of the confiscation, his studio contained many family portraits in various stages of completion. Schneider's most famous works include two large canvases entitled Famous Guests, which he created for the Imperial Baths in Karlovy Vary. They depict dozens of famous people who were in some way connected with the Karlovy Vary spa. A significant number of the preserved works are paintings with historical themes, which form a kind of family album of the spa town, meant to help its inhabitants to remember key moments in the history of their hometown. Most of these paintings, such as The Arrival of Wallenstein in Karlovy Vary in 1630 and A Soldier from the Thirty Years' War, are kept in the Karlovy Vary Museum. The museum’s storeroms house such treasures as Nicola Paganini's Concert in Karlovy Vary in 1828, the Peasant Uprising in Karlovy Vary - Drahovice in 1680 and St. Hubert on the Hunt. Among Schneider's least known works are those with religious motifs. One of the better known is Pieta, exhibited in 1921 at an exhibition of the Metznerbund, of which Schneider was a member.

One whole room at the 1935 commemorative exhibition was dedicated to the work of Oswald Schneider (1900-1920). Like his father and brothers, he studied painting in Munich; his teacher was Professor Langenmatel. The exhibition also included two paintings by Wilhelm's youngest son, Max Schneider, namely a portrait of his father and a double portrait of his parents. Max, too, followed in his father's footsteps, studying in Munich and eventually settling in Karlovy Vary. In the early years of Czechoslovakia, he was sent for military service to Zakarpattia, which became a source of inspiration for him. He was fascinated by the local Jewish rabbis, a theme he would return to again and again.  After the war, he had to leave his homeland and moved to Germany with his wife and two children. There he continued to paint and teach painting. At the end of his life, he returned to Bohemia and searched for his own and his father's paintings.

This exhibition was undoubtedly one of the most important cultural and artistic events in Karlovy Vary between the wars. Wilhelm Schneider exhibited very little during his lifetime, and this was probably his only solo exhibition. Most of the exhibited works are now considered lost; we know the fate of only six paintings, three of which are in the Karlovy Vary Museum, the others in private collections. It is important to note that the exhibition also included the work of Oswald Schneider, which would otherwise have been forgotten.

Kateřina Švajdlerová

Works Cited

Weinmann 1987: Josef Weinmann, Egerländer biografisches Lexikon, Band 2. (N–Z), Männedorf/ZH 1987, p. 171

Further Reading

Eghalanda Bundeszeiting XIII, 1934, 15. 6., no. 6

Viktor Karell, Akademischer Maler Wilhelm Schneider, Karlsbad 1935, p. 2

Archival Sources

Collection of Stanislav Burachovič, file Výtvarní umělci Karlovarska [Artists of the Karlovy Vary Region)

Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Archiv, Archivmappe „Schneider“ (Malerfamilie)