Gustav Zindel: "Bauernhochzeit: Kammerwagen-Fahrer", 1910. The watercolor shows traditional customs related to marriage in the country.
New York / Berlin. The US Museum of European Art honors the late painter Gustav Zindel (1883-1959) as Artist of the Month, October 2006. The Museum Committee has accepted the proposal of Consul B. John Zavrel, director of the museum. "We honor this painter as a personality who all his life supported a better understanding and cooperation between the Germans and the Czechs", said Zavrel. "It was not always easy for Gustav Zindel."
Born as a Sudetendeutscher (a member of the German minority in the so-called Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia), he became a victim of the political situation during the time between 1936 up to his death in 1959. As Germans, Zindel and his family lost after all their property after the Second World War, and later suffered greatly in the communist ruled Czechoslovakia.
Zindel did not emigrate. He stayed in the country of his birth, and lived in poor conditions. His merits are that he showed in his popular art the tradition of country life, and the common sense of the German and Czech people, who had lived peaceful together in the Imperial time. We owe to the painter Gustav Zindel, in his folk art, the preservation of the traditional life in the "good old times". He reminds us with his paintings about the customs and traditions among the German and Czech society. They had many things in common: the way of dressing, music, food and cooking.
© PROMETHEUS 112/2006
PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin - News, Politics, Art and Science. Nr. 112, October 2006