Background
Fritz Wotruba was born in 1907 as the youngest of eight children of Adolf Wotruba (who came from Bohemia to work as a tailor"s assistant) and Maria Wotruba, née Kocsi (from Hungary, working as a maid), in Vienna.
architect sculptor university professor
Fritz Wotruba was born in 1907 as the youngest of eight children of Adolf Wotruba (who came from Bohemia to work as a tailor"s assistant) and Maria Wotruba, née Kocsi (from Hungary, working as a maid), in Vienna.
Pupil of Anton Hanak.
He was considered one of the most notable sculptors of the 20th century in Austria. In his work, he increasingly dissolves figurative components in favor of geometrical abstraction with the shape of the cube as the basic form. Fritz, the youngest, was spared from his father"s wrath but was kept under close surveillance by the Police due to the Police records of his three elder brothers, and Canetti believed that his fascination with sculpting in stone was a form of psychological defence against his traumatic childhood.
From 1921 to 1925, he was trained as an engraver, as an apprentice in the engraving and die cutting workshop of Josef Schantin in Vienna.
From February to summer 1926, he attended the arts and trades school of the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry and open evening courses on nude drawing. In fall 1926, he enrolled in studies in sculpting at the arts and trades school.
Through the end of his studies, he was a student of Anton Hanak, and received a stipend by the Vienna Society of Modern Art, the Austrian Chamber of Labor and the municipality of Vienna - which was obtained for him by the ministrations of Anna Mahler, who was his pupil and lover. In 1933, he had a studio under the Stadtbahn, or Metro Rail Tracks.
Canetti:".it consisted of two big vaults supporting the Stadtbahn trestle.
In one stood figures that would have got in his way while he was working in the other.
Married Lucy Vorel, 1955.