Franz von Defregger - Buy or sell works
30 April 1835, Ederhof bei Stronach (East Tirol, Austria) - 2 January 1921, Munich (Germany)
Franz von Defregger was a painter of Bavarian genres and themes. A representative of the Munich School, he preferred idealised stories and sentimental motifs from the Tirolean struggle for independence and everyday farming life.
Defregger was born in 1835 into a family of Tirolean farmers from Ederhof bei Stronach in the district of Iselsberg-Stronach. In 1860 at the age of 25, he moved to Innsbruck where he enrolled at the local crafts school and studied under Michael Stolz, a professor and sculptor. In 1860 he attended the preparatory classes under Hermann Dyck for the Royal Arts and Crafts School in Munich. He passed the entrance examination for the Royal Art Academy the following year, where he took painting classes taught by German artist Hermann Anschütz. Defregger stayed in Paris between 1863 and 1865, where he studied at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. In 1864, he contributed to the Salon des Refusés, an exhibition held parallel to the official Salon de Paris. He used his remaining time for personal study.
He finally returned to Munich in 1865, where he was employed (along with Hans Makart and Gabriel von Max) in the studio of the historic painter Carl Theodor von Piloty. He quickly became a favourite at the Munich Salon. Defregger was appointed professor for historical painting at the Munich Art Academy in 1878, a position he held until 1910. He created an extensive oeuvre, which focussed mainly on dramatic scenes from the Tirolean popular uprising of 1809, as well as sentimental, idealised motifs from everyday farming life. He was a particularly enthusiastic portrait painter.
Holder of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown, Defregger also received numerous other prizes and accolades, including the order Pour le Mérite for science and art. He was knighted in 1883.
In addition, he taught significant artists like Hugo Engl, Walter Thor, Fritz Prölß, Lovis Corinth, Hans Perathoner and Josef Moroder Lusenberg and was a keen collaborator with other artists belonging to the Munich School, among them Rudolf Epp. Defregger died at the age of 85. He was posthumously awarded Honorary Citizenship of Munich in 1905.
His most prominent works include Children Eating Cherries (1869), The Last Squad (1872), Tirolean Home Guard Returning from the War of 1909 (1876), The Tirolean Salon (1882) and Storming of the Red Tower of Munich by Smith of Kochel on Christmas Morning 1705 (1881). Some of his paintings are now on show at the Local History Museum in Bozen, South Tirol.
His painting The Fairytale Counter was sold for €78,000 at a Dorotheum auction on 25 November 2014.