Castel Caramel

About Castel Caramel

Castel Caramel is a private non-profit cultural platform in the South of France which has been devoted to the creation of art since 1988 when it was purchased by the world-renowned Viennese artist Ernst Fuchs. Until his death in 2015, the building housed Fuchs’ studio, and became a forum for exchange between artists, curators, poets, musicians and collectors. It is our vision to continue the legacy of Ernst Fuchs and his atelier, through annual residencies for contemporary artists and associated events to support our artists and the arts community on the Riviera.

The special light and landscape of the Côte d’Azur inspired many great artists to create some of their best work; Picasso, Cézanne, Chagall, Monet, Morisot, Renoir, Van Gogh and countless others chose to come and work here. We want to make the same possible for artists of our time.

History

In the late 1980’s Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs, world renown at the time, wanted to escape the frenzy and publicity he experienced living in his hometown Vienna and decided to relocate to Monaco. He was offered a beautiful atelier at the port by the late Prince Rainier, but still Fuchs craved more quiet and isolation to develop a new painting series.

Searching for the right spot, him and his manager at the time, current owner of Castel Caramel Dr. Cornelia Mensdorff-Pouilly, drove around the coastline and further into the Alpes Maritimes. It was at the first glimpse of Castel Caramel throning majestically atop of a hill that Fuchs fell in love a d decided that this was just what he was looking for.

He chose to buy Castel Caramel for its romantic setting in the hills atop the French riviera, as well as the spectacular working space. Ideal lighting conditions and seven-meter-high ceilings provided the perfect setting for the development of his monumental paintings which often took years to be finished.

Castel Caramel became not only Fuchs’ studio, but also the meeting point of many other creatives, collaborators and collectors.

Ernst Fuchs

Ernst Fuchs (b. 1930 – d. 2015, Vienna, AT) was an Austrian artist and co-founder of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. His work comprised of drawing, painting, sculpture, music and an extensive print oeuvre. Born to a Jewish father and a catholic mother at the rise of WWII, he grew up hiding from the Nazis and eventually had to be baptized in the catholic St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna which would also host his funeral.

Most of his work addresses themes of religion and mysticism. He was influenced by Austrian artists like Alexander Rothaug, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele but also international artists such as Salvador Dali, Max Pechstein, Edvard Munch and Henry Moore.

Like Klimt, Fuchs was a renegade, even within the international movement of like-minded artists to which he quasi-belonged. Fuchs’ departure from surrealism is, in many ways, akin to Klimt’s departure from the mainstream of European symbolism. Whilst Klimt’s work departs into the purely decorative and sensual, Fuchs’ progression moves further and deeper into the realms of symbol, meaning, philosophy and religion.

Fuchs rediscovered Old Masterly techniques such as Mischtechnik which uses Egg Tempera to build up volume and is then glazes with oil paints mixed with resins to create a jewel-like effect.

Fuchs was considered a “Wunderkind” and was allowed to enter the Academy of Fine Arts at the early age of 15. Here he met Rudolf Hausner, Arik Brauer, Anton Lehmden and Wolfgang Hutter – together they would later found the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. Operating under the principles of painting from the Old Masters, the students explored ideas of allegory, symbolism, and eroticism.

Opened in 1988, the Ernst Fuchs Museum occupies the former Otto Wagner Villa in Hütteldorf an outer district of Vienna. Fuchs died on November 9th, 2015 in Vienna, Austria.

Timeline

1930 Ernst Fuchs is born on February 13th, as the only child of Maximilian and Leopoldine Fuchs in Vienna. Father and grandfather belong to the Jewish faith.

1930 - 45 Emigration of the grandfather to the US and of the father to Shanghai. Most members of the family were murdered in the Holocaust. Ernst Fuchs is as “Mischling Ersten Grades”(first-degree mixed race) exposed to discrimination.

1942 The twelve-year old boy is baptized at the Catholic St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna.

1945 Study with Albert Paris von Gütersloh at the Vienna Academy of Art. Ernst Fuchs is accepted as a fifteen-year-old at the academy because he is recognized a prodigy.

1948 Foundation of “The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism” with Arik Brauer, Wolfgang Hutter, Anton Lehmden and Rudolf Hausner.

1947 Participation at the first international exhibition of the Vienna Art-Club in Turin.

1950 Fuchs moves to Paris for twelve years. Significant encounters with Salvadore Dali, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst and the circle around Jean-Paul Sartre.

1952 22-year-old Ernst Fuchs already has four children. When he moves to Paris, he leaves his wife Trude, a piano-player with their sons Elias and Daniel back in Vienna. The painter Mia Loeblich, his girlfriend, who followed him to Paris, gives birth to their daughter Lukretia in December 1951. Some months later Geri Krongold, who becomes his second wife, gives birth to their son Michael.

1952 With Geri he travels to America, Spain and England and has his first solo-shows in museums and galleries.

1956 After the separation from Geri he moves to Jerusalem, Israel and begins to live as a novice in Dormitio-Abbey, a monastery. He stays for some month in the monastery and works there on “The Last Supper”, a monumental fresco.

1958 Ernst Fuchs moves back to Vienna where he launches his own gallery; “Galerie Ernst Fuchs” near the “Theater an der Wien”.

1958 - 60 “Rosenkranz Triptych” in Hetzendorf, Vienna.

1961 Ernst Fuchs marries his third wife, the Jewish painter Eva-Christina Postl. In the following years Eva-Christina gives birth to four children.

1962 Book “Samson” is released, journeys to Israel.

1966 “Architectura Caelestis - Images of the Hidden Prime of Styles”, philosophical texts and sketches about architecture.

1965 - 74 Monumental sculptures “Esther”, “Moses” and “Christophorus”.

1972 Acquisition of the Otto Wagner-Villa in Hütteldorf, Vienna. Exhibitions in the US and Japan.

1975 - 78 Set design and costumes for the operas “Parsifal” and “Magic Flute” in Hamburg, the ballet “Josephslegende” in Vienna and the opera “Lohengrin” in Munich.

1978 “Lohengrin” cycle, creation of twelve watercolor paintings.

1979 - 80 Monumental paintings with mythological content for the Otto Wagner-Villa.

1981 - 82 Recording of his compositions “Von Jahve” and “Via Dolorosa”.

1980 - 88 Travels with Cornelia, his manager and muse to Asia, America, Africa, International exhibitions, Ernst Fuchs retrospective in Venice.

1988 Foundation of the Ernst Fuchs-Museum in the Otto Wagner-Villa in Vienna. Ernst Fuchs moves to Monaco with Cornelia and her daughter Maria-Theresia. Acquisition of Castel Caramel in the south of France, near Monaco, where he continues his work on monumental paintings and sculptures for the next twenty years.

1990 - 2010 “Apocalypse” cycle, frescos in a chapel belonging to the church St. Egid, Klagenfurt, Austria.

1990 “Die Phantasten” exhibition in the “Wiener Künstlerhaus” and in Leipzig.

1991 - 93 “Die Phantasten” traveling exhibition in Japan.

1993 “Fantasia” Ernst Fuchs retrospective in St.Petersburg, Russia.

1994 Inauguration of the “St. Jakobus” church in Thal/Graz, designed by Ernst Fuchs.

1994 “Du Fantastique au Visionnaire” “Contra-Biennale” organized by Ernst Fuchs in Venice, Giudecca with more than hundred painters from different countries.

1994 Ernst Fuchs retrospective in the castle of Gruyère, Switzerland.

1993 - 97 “Apokalypse cycle” Ernst Fuchs works at Castel Caramel on a series of paintings for the chapel in Klagenfurt.

1996 “Magic Flute” set design and costumes in Vienna and various Germany cities.

1996 “The Bible” illustrated by Ernst Fuchs.

1996 - 98 “Mythos and Religion” traveling exhibition.

1998 “Start” and “Angel” monumental sculptures in bronze.

1998 - 2008 Ernst Fuchs rents a studio in Monaco on Quai Antione 1ier offered to him by Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

1998 Arthotel “Fuchspalast” designed by Ernst Fuchs in St.Veit, Carinthia.

1999 “Mythos, Phantasie, Realismus” Ernst Fuchs retrospective in Berlin.

2000 “Venus 2000”, bronze.

2001 Ernst Fuchs retrospective in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and in Palais Harrach, Vienna.

2002 “Phantastisches Leben” autobiography by Ernst Fuchs, Edition Kindler

2003 “Die Phantasten” group exhibition with Brauer, Fuchs, Hausner, Hutter, Lehmden, in Tulln, Egon Schiele’s birthplace.

2006 “Phantastisches” group exhibition with Arik Brauer and Hundertwasser at the Jewish Museum in Vienna.

2008 “Die Phantasten” group exhibition in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.

2010 “Die Phantastische Sammlung” Ernst Fuchs retrospective in Vienna on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

2014 Ernst Fuchs retrospective in Bratislava.

2015 November 9th Ernst Fuchs dies in Vienna.