ALEXANDER VON LIEZEN-MAYER PAINTINGS FOR SALE & BIOGRAPHY
ALEXANDER VON LIEZEN-MAYER
Hungarian, 1839 - 1898
BIOGRAPHY
Alexander von Liezen-Mayer, also known as Sándor Liezen Mayer in his native Hungary, was born in Györ in northwestern Hungary in January 1839. Rather than pursue a military career, his uncle Edl Tivadar recognized his skill in draughtsmanship and facilitated the young artist's entry into the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he studied with Karl von Blaas. After less than two years at the Academy, Liezen-Mayer held his first exhibition in Pest in 1857. He continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Hermann Anschütz and, by 1862, had secured a position in the studio of Karl Theodor von Piloty.
Piloty had a profound influence on the young artist. In 1865 Liezen-Mayer won an award at the Munich Academy for two drawings he submitted and was commissioned to paint a work depicting the canonization of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, which he completed in 1867 and is now on display at the National Gallery, Budapest. The success of this painting led to many commissions, including a portrait of Emperor Franz Joseph (also King of Hungary) in 1870, and theater curtains for the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz. Liezen-Mayer collaborated with the German painter Alexander von Wagner to paint a monumental work, Return from the Hunt, to adorn a wall in the dining room of a palace built by Baron von Stieglitz in St. Petersburg. And in 1876, he made a series of illustrations for Goethe’s Faust which received great acclaim at the Munich Art Exhibition; followed by drawings for Friedrich Schiller’s Song of the Bell, also shown at Munich.
Liezen-Mayer married an American, Florence Schwing, in 1872. He spent a few years as Director of the Stuttgart Academy of Arts before returning to Munich in 1882 and becoming a Professor of history painting at the Academy. And in 1893 he became a Professor there of religious painting, a position he held until his death in Munich in 1898. His fellow Hungarian artist, Philip de László, whom he first met in 1889, painted a portrait of Liezen-Mayer in 1893 which is now in the collection of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich.
Museum Collections
Burkenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania
Christian Museum, Esztergom, Hungary
Government Art Collection, U.K.
Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
Ottó Herman Museum, Miskolc, Hungary
