Anton Ažbe

Anton Ažbe (30 May 1862 - 6 August 1905) was a Slovene painter and teacher.

He was born in a peasant family in the small Carniolan village of Dolenčice near Škofja Loka in Austria-Hungary (today, in Slovenia). At first he studied art in Ljubljana under the supervision of Janez Wolf who introduced him to the style of the Nazarene movement. At the age of twenty he went to Vienna, where he attended the "Akademie der bildenden Künste". In 1884 he moved to Munich. Initially he attended the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, but in 1885 he left it in order to join the private painting school of Ludwig von Löfftz.

In 1892, he established his own school which soon became known under the name of "Azbe-Schule" and became one of the most renowned painting schools for young artists in the Bavarian capital. Several famous painters, particularly those who arrived to Munich from Slavic countries, attended Ažbe's school, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Rihard Jakopič and Nadežda Petrović.

Ažbe was a renowned painter himself, although he created relatively few paintings. He died in Munich in 1905.

Famous pupils

Other famous pupils who attended Ažbe's school in Munich include:

*Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
*Ivan Grohar
*Matija Jama
*Dmitry Kardovsky
*Ludvík Kuba
*Oleksandr Murashko
*Zygmunt Rozwadowski
*Matej Sternen
*Beta Vukanović
*Eugeniusz Żak

References

* Ambrožič, Katarina: "Wege zur Moderne und die Ažbe-Schule in München" (Recklinghausen: Bongers, 1988) ISBN 3-7647-0388-1
* Fäthke, Bernd: "Im Vorfeld des Expressionismus. Anton Azbe und die Malerei in München und Paris" (Wiesbaden: Verlag des Instutes für Bildende Kunst, 1988) ISBN 3-926899-01-8
* Tršar, Marijan: "Anton Ažbe" (Ljubljana: Založba Park, 1991)