Alexander Rothaug


Alexander Rothaug was an Austrian painter and illustrator.

Biography

Alexander Rothaug was born in Vienna in 1870 to Theodor Rothaug and Karoline Rothaug. His maternal ancestors were also painters and sculptors. He received his first painting lessons from his father, alongside his brother Leopold Rothaug, who was two years his senior.
In 1884, he began an apprenticeship as a sculptor with Johann Schindler, but in 1885 he transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna to study painting under August Eisenmenger, Christian Griepenkerl, and Franz Rumpler. The Orientalist painter Leopold Carl Müller was also a significant influence as an instructor, with whom Rothaug studied until Müller's death in 1892.
Rothaug moved to Munich in 1892, where he worked as an illustrator for the humorous magazine Fliegende Blätter. He married Ottilie Lauterkorn in 1896. He undertook study trips to Dalmatia, Italy, and the island of Rügen. In May 1910, he became a member of the Cooperative of Visual Artists of Vienna. An extensive article on Rothaug appeared in the magazine Kunst-Revue in 1911. In 1912, he stayed in Mallorca at the invitation of Archduke [Ludwig Salvator of Austria]. Rothaug published the work Skizzen aus Miramar based on this stay.
In 1933, Rothaug published a systematization of the human body regarding proportion theory titled Statik und Dynamik des menschlichen Körpers as a loose-leaf collection of 10 plates. He also wrote a 38-page treatise titled Das Wissen in der Malerei with a three-page appendix: Gedanken über die Kunst und den Künstler.
Rothaug was represented at the Great [German Art Exhibition] of 1938 in Munich with eight panel paintings, three of which were acquired by Adolf Hitler. His work Nessus, created in 1930 in Vienna, depicts an episode from the life of Hercules; like his general body of work, it was instrumentalized by the National Socialists for propaganda purposes, which caused him considerable difficulties after the war.
He is buried in an honorary grave at the Grinzing Cemetery in Vienna.

Selected works

Selected exhibitions

Awards