Eugen Jettel

Biography

Eugen Jettel, the important Austrian landscape painter, studied from 1860 - together with Emil Jakob Schindler, Rudolf Ribarz and Robert Russ - at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Albert Zimmermann. This was followed by study trips to Holland and northern France (1870), Hungary and Slovakia (1871) as well as to Sicily (1872) with Leopold Carl Müller. In 1875, the artist moved to France, where he continued to develop independently, particularly under the influence of the open-air painting of the Barbizon School. In Paris, he was under contract to the well-known art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer, for whom Eugen Jettel created his best paintings with motifs from France and Holland. The artist led a successful life in the French capital and also became a central figure in a circle of Austrian, German and Hungarian artists. Regular, much-noticed participation in exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, Munich and Vienna as well as his appointment as a Knight of the French Legion of Honor for his services to the Paris World Exhibition in 1889 reflect the high esteem in which the painter was held even then. In 1897, Eugen Jettel moved to his hometown of Vienna and - despite his membership of the Künstlerhaus - also joined the newly founded Secession, in whose exhibitions he regularly participated from then on. During this time, Archduke Carl Stephan and his wife, Archduchess Maria Theresa, became particular admirers and patrons of the artist. Eugen Jettel died in Lussingrande before the start of a study trip that was to take him to the Adriatic region and was buried in St. Anne's Cemetery in Trieste on September 1, 1901.