DOI issue:
No. 234 (September 1912)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21157#0344
Studio-Talk
and graphic work by'Emil Singer, Helene Drost,
and Gabriele Murad-Michalkowski. Two rooms
were set apart for the members of the Society of
German Artists in Bohemia, to which many well-
known artists contributed, among them Otty
Schneider, Fritz Pontini, whose hand is now for
ever still, Richard Troger, and a number of graphic
artists. A. S. L.
DRESDEN. — The two specimens of
Walther Conz’s art here reproduced
represent only one side of his craft. He
is a very versatile handler of the etcher’s
and engraver’s tools, as he needs must be since the
chair of instruction in these branches at one of the
principal German Academy Schools has been en-
trusted to him. Conz has been for a decade at
least the professional exponent of black-and-white
art with the Karlsruhe. Kfinstlerbund, all of whose
members have occasionally etched and more often
lithographed without making a real profession, so
to speak, of the practice. But this last applies to
Conz, and it is accordingly natural that the teaching
of black-and-white should have fallen to his lot at
the Karlsruhe Academy.
Conz has always been an original etcher, and as
far as I know never condescended to reproductive
work—that is, to reproduce the inventions of another
man. He has also mezzotinted a good deal, notably
a fine portrait of his mother. This process too, in
spite of Herkomer, may be looked upon as pretty
much obsolete, at least as far as the original etcher
is concerned. Painter-etchers of to-day generally
choose the sand-paper method when aiming at some
of the effects that true mezzotinting affords, for
the sand-paper method allows of more freedom and
commands the charm of true spontaneity more than
the rocked plate. Like all modern rock-mezzo-
tinters Conz attempts this very charm too, and tries
to achieve it by a less regular system of rocking
than the old reproductive artists required.
Conz is the son of an artist and a native of Baden.
Having been brought up in an artistic atmosphere
from his very infancy, this has made him more pliable
than he otherwise might have been, has enabled
him to criticise new departures more dispassionately
and to extract good as well as avoid excesses more
easily than many of his colleagues. The two great
men who have crossed his path and who could not
“ IN THE SUBURBS
322
FROM AN ETCHING BY PROF. WALTHER CONZ
and graphic work by'Emil Singer, Helene Drost,
and Gabriele Murad-Michalkowski. Two rooms
were set apart for the members of the Society of
German Artists in Bohemia, to which many well-
known artists contributed, among them Otty
Schneider, Fritz Pontini, whose hand is now for
ever still, Richard Troger, and a number of graphic
artists. A. S. L.
DRESDEN. — The two specimens of
Walther Conz’s art here reproduced
represent only one side of his craft. He
is a very versatile handler of the etcher’s
and engraver’s tools, as he needs must be since the
chair of instruction in these branches at one of the
principal German Academy Schools has been en-
trusted to him. Conz has been for a decade at
least the professional exponent of black-and-white
art with the Karlsruhe. Kfinstlerbund, all of whose
members have occasionally etched and more often
lithographed without making a real profession, so
to speak, of the practice. But this last applies to
Conz, and it is accordingly natural that the teaching
of black-and-white should have fallen to his lot at
the Karlsruhe Academy.
Conz has always been an original etcher, and as
far as I know never condescended to reproductive
work—that is, to reproduce the inventions of another
man. He has also mezzotinted a good deal, notably
a fine portrait of his mother. This process too, in
spite of Herkomer, may be looked upon as pretty
much obsolete, at least as far as the original etcher
is concerned. Painter-etchers of to-day generally
choose the sand-paper method when aiming at some
of the effects that true mezzotinting affords, for
the sand-paper method allows of more freedom and
commands the charm of true spontaneity more than
the rocked plate. Like all modern rock-mezzo-
tinters Conz attempts this very charm too, and tries
to achieve it by a less regular system of rocking
than the old reproductive artists required.
Conz is the son of an artist and a native of Baden.
Having been brought up in an artistic atmosphere
from his very infancy, this has made him more pliable
than he otherwise might have been, has enabled
him to criticise new departures more dispassionately
and to extract good as well as avoid excesses more
easily than many of his colleagues. The two great
men who have crossed his path and who could not
“ IN THE SUBURBS
322
FROM AN ETCHING BY PROF. WALTHER CONZ