Kurzweil, Maximilian

1867 – 1916
Austrian

Although Austrian artist Maximilian Kurzweil began his studies in Vienna, he completed his training in Paris at the acclaimed Académie Julian.  Though he achieved a degree of professional and personal success in France, having exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1894 and marrying a French woman, he returned to Vienna in 1896.  He taught at the Frauenkunstchule (an art school for women students) and worked steadily as a painter and printmaker, but is probably best known as a co-founder (along with Gustav Klimt) of the Vienna Secession in 1897 and as an editor and contributor to the official Secessionist magazine Ver Sacrum.  Kurzweil’s work combines the Secession’s Modernist style with Art Nouveau.

With the onset of World War I, Kurzweil and his French wife were separated.  He fell in love with one of his students and they tragically took their own lives together in 1916.