Maximilian Lenz - Buy or sell works
4 October 1860, Vienna (Austria) - 19 May 1948, Vienna (Austria)
Maximilian Lenz started to attend the University of Applied Arts in Vienna aged just 14, and was accepted into Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts three years later. After completing his studies, he received a scholarship to travel to Rome for two years.
At the start of the 1890s, he travelled to Buenos Aires to work on a professional project along with the copper engraver Ferdinand Schirnböck (1859-1930). After returning to Vienna, he became a member of Vienna’s Künstlerhaus in 1896, and was one of the founding members of the Vienna Secession from 1897 onwards, remaining involved until 1939.
In 1903, he journeyed to Italy with Gustav Klimt, where he visited Ravenna. There, he studied the gold-heavy Byzantine mosaics of San Vitale, which had a short-term (if not longer) impact on his art.
After this journey, Lenz moved to Lower Austria in 1904 where he was employed by the well-to-do Kupelwieser family as a drawing instructor. Ida Kupelwieser (1870-1927) was one of the most talented members of the family, and Lenz married her when he was 66, but she died shortly after the wedding.
Lenz used a range of techniques throughout his oeuvre and did not develop a fixed style that remained with him throughout his life. Rather, he adapted an individual design for each of the various media and works. After losing his wife, he was unable to find his way back into independent work and designed posters for war bonds during the First World War.