Fritz (Friedrich Rudolf) Cernajsek

13.11.1910 – 13.11.1996

by Tillfried CERNAJSEK*)

*) Hofrat Dr.phil.Tillfried CERNAJSEK,
A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf, Walzengasse 35 a

He was born in Vienna on Nov. 13th, 1910 where he - after attending Primary and Secondary School – worked as an apprentice at his father’s workshop, engraving and enamelling. This vocational training was to become the foundation stone of his later professional life as an artist, especially as an etcher and copper engraver. Already as a schoolboy, his teachers noticed Friedrich Cernajsek’s talent.

As his parents owned a little house with garden for the summer holidays in Perchtoldsdorf in the outskirts of Vienna, They spent almost every free minute there. Here, Friedrich made his first studies on nature and did his first work in copper engraving. At his father’s favourite wine tavern "Vielkinder – Wurth" he "immortalized" guests, family members and also the old wine press in his sketchbook. Years later, these sketches should be found in his main work, "The Vintage" and the "Faust Cyclus" in both of which motifs of Perchtildsdorf occur.

Here, in this rural suburb, first contacts to the world of artists were taken up. The writers Maria Grengg and Karl H. Strobl as well as the dialect writer Georg Strnadt were loyal friends for decades.

In 1934, Friedrich Cernajsek was admitted to the Master Class of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts (now University) of Vienna where he studied at the professors Rudolf Jettmar, Wilhelm Dachauer and Christian Ludwig Martin and others. Already during his studies, first results and awards turned out; but the most important, the Austrian State Travel Scholarship, was confiscated by the National Socialists who had only recently taken over power. A refund of money or even a job as a teacher was refused to him because he was no member of their party.

In 1939 he married Sophie Steger, a teacher and a student of German literature at that time. Because of the war and also because of political reasons she had to give up her university studies and had to pass an additional exam for primary school teaching. Already in 1940, Friedrich Cernajsek was called up for the German Army, fortunately being spared combat action by given the Rome Award in 1942. This award was combined with a stay in Italy which Friedrich Cernajsek accepted in spite of adverse circumstances. It was really a present heaven sent! Although the situation of supply was extremely bad and the invasion of the Allied Forces came nearer every day, Sophie and Friedrich still spent a happy time there. This is reflected in his work and in his full sketch books. Numerous drawings and, above all, a lot of big aquarelles of the Italian landscape were created.

Son Tillfried was born in 1943. Because of the daily danger of bomb attacks it was urgent to leave Vienna. The artist’s wife was released from teaching, and after a stay at Wullersdorf the little family lived until the end of World War II in the village of Ulrichsberg in Upper Austria. When Austria was divided into four zones of military occupation, Friedrich Cernajsek went to Aschach on the Danube with the American Forces where his daughter Roswitha was born. Here in Upper Austria Friedrich Cernajsek was to have the second blossom of his artistic work; here was a lot of motifs to be drawn and painted.

The views of Aschach and of Linz – which is very near – were engraved in copper; transforming his numerous drawings and sketches into printed graphics was the strong point of the artist. In Upper Austria he also got sponsorship of the Provincial Governor, Dr. Heinrich Gleissner, and by the Lord Mayor of Linz, Ernst Koref. Here in Linz the first important exhibitions after the war took place and a wide appreciation of his artistic work resulted in it. He also met numerous artistic personalities here, such as Max Kislinger in Linz and Alfred Kubin in Schärding. Sophie Cernajsek was able to work as a teacher in Aschach.

The death of Friedrich Cernajsek’s parents who had stayed in Vienna was the reason to return to the capital. In 1958, a second daughter, Ulrike, was born. Friedrich Cernajsek returned to Perchtoldsdorf where in 1939 the matrimony had taken place; he bought a new property and built a house in which his dream of a studio of his own came true. In 1966 the family moved into the so called "Perchta House". The artist had decorated one of the outside walls with a big mural painting; he loved living in the countryside and refused the city and totally withdrew to the new house. Disappointed at economic respect as he failed to gain economic independence, he - as he always stressed – switched to the self – elected inner emigration. But her in Perchtoldsdorf in 1975 his work was honoured by a great exhibition in the local castle.

In the last seven years of his life, Friedrich Cernajsek’s creative power considerably slackened, a fact which he put down in his last diary notice on March 14th, 1994 : "For days I feel pressed down from exhaustion; I am not able to do anything!" After being ill for a long time, he died on his 86th birthday. His burial place is on the cemetery of Perchtoldsdorf.

Until the end of his days Friedrich Cernajsek remained dedicated to his artistic principles and didn’t ingratiate with other, probably more up – to – date styles. The former President of the Austrian Republic, Dr. Rudolf Kirchschläger, characterized the achievements of our father in the letter of condolence to his widow in well – put words : "He is a really big artist whose work will find acquaintance probably in years to come; he was a human being to whom the loyalty to his conviction was an unrenounceable part of his self!"