Wolfgang von Websky (1895 - 1992)

Wolfgang von Websky

Wolfgang von Websky was a German painter. In order to understand Websky's work, one has to consider the political upheavals, ruptures and losses of Germany's recent past. Wolfgang von Websky grew up in a family of officers with large estates in Prussian Silesia. In 1945 he had lost everything except his family: property, homeland, artistic work, Prussia as a spiritual and political foundation, Breslau and Berlin as his artistic centers. After his release from captivity, he began an uncompromising “second life” as a freelance artist in Wangen im Allgäu at the age of 57. He let the economic rise of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was restlessly beginning around him, pass him by as well as the hectically changing fashions of the art business, which was essentially dominated by non-representational painting. The conscious adherence to shape, color and form, to a basic aesthetic attitude, was not only a conservative tradition for him, but also a commitment to and opposition to the world of abstract art, which seemed alien and soulless to him. The portrait gained particular importance in his work, whereby he dealt intensively with the people portrayed in each case.