Anton Leidl (1900 - 1976) Market Square In Basel, Switzerland

Anton Leidl (1900 Frankfurt - 1976 Munich)

Basel Market, Switzerland

Material: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 100 x 65.5 cm
Frame: Yes

About the artist:

Anton Leidl was a German painter, graphic designer and caricaturist. Leidl was the son of the Eggenfelden writer Lina Leidl. He first trained as a teacher in Montabaur, then studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under the direction of Adolf Hengeler and Martin von Feuerstein, from the summer semester of 1922 to 1928. From 1927, his works were regularly exhibited in Munich, notably at the Glaspalast, where he lost three paintings and four ink drawings when the building burned down in 1931.

Between 1923 and 1935, his works were exchanged at the Gallery Heinemann, where he presented 30 works in a group exhibition in 1932. The same year, he received the Dürer Prize from the city of Nuremberg for his work Mainfeld. In 1933, Leidl received a travel grant from the city of Munich to Rome and Florence, where he undertook several painting trips. His naturalistic works, which mainly depict cityscapes or landscapes and their details, are colorful and focused. Even in his later works he sticks to this style, which is no longer fashionable. Between 1926 and 1932, he was able to publish 15 drawings in Simplicissimus; he also worked for Fliegenden Blätter and Jugend, where a large-format drawing of him appeared every week for a while. In 1932, he participated in the International Caricature Exhibition in Vienna. He was able to continue exhibiting during the National Socialist period. He was a member of the Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft (MKG) and served on its board of directors from 1934. He served on the jury for Glaspalast exhibitions since the late 1920s and, after the building burned down in 1931, he is the juror of the annual MKG exhibition.

In 1934, 16 of his works were exhibited in Bremen and in 1941, works by him were exhibited at the Städtische Galerie in Nuremberg. In the same year he exhibited 58 oil paintings and 17 drawings and watercolors at the Städtisches Museum in Trier, and in 1942 he was exhibited at the Kunstverein in Leipzig. Leidl took part in the propaganda exhibition "Die Straßen Adolf Hitlers in der Kunst" and was represented with eight works at the Great German Art Exhibition between 1940 and 1944. In the 1930s he created murals for several barracks and Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe buildings, as well as works for ship interiors. In 1943 his studio in Munich was bombed, after which he moved to Tutzing on Lake Starnberg, where he lived until the end of his life. After the end of the Nazi era, he was able to continue exhibiting. In 1946, for example, he was represented at the "General Exhibition of German Art" in Dresden, one of the first major exhibitions of contemporary artists in the Soviet occupation zone. Leidl's works were exhibited in Bielefeld in 1947 and in Cologne in 1952.

According to an article in Weltkunst, at that time "eleven of the most renowned state and municipal museums in Germany" had works by Leidl. In 1948, Leidl again became a member of the newly founded MKG, the Münchener Künstlerbund and the Munich Secession. From 1950, he participated with the Secession in the major art exhibitions of the Haus der Kunst, which he left in 1958. In 1954, he undertook a painting trip to South America; he recounts his experiences in the brochure Die lustige Halbwelt-Fahrt, published in 1956 (79 p.). In the 1950s it could be seen in Munich, Mannheim, Cologne and Pforzheim, and in the 1960s in Hameln, Mühlheim, Nuremberg, Bremen and Erlangen. Leidl remained single throughout his life and died in 1976. The Bavarian State Painting Collections own nine works by the artist, and part of his written legacy is in the German Art Archives in Nuremberg. There is no detailed historical research on the painter.