WHEN COLLECTING OLD SILHOUETTES, every so often I come across something which stops me in my tracks. “I wish I’d thought of that!” I say to myself. This is what happened when I first came across the lively, Munich-beer-drinkers silhouettes of Gebhard Wagner.
The man with the long beard and spectacles appears in both.
These unique silhouettes were cut by an artist called Gebhard Wagner, who lived and worked in Munich throughout his life. They show men (always men) dressed in stiff, white collars, while smoking and drinking in a beer hall. The silhouettes are collaged, rather than cut in one piece, with hands holding cigars and beer tankards pasted on top of the portrait cuttings of the men. This gives them a slightly scrappy, cobbled-together appearance which greatly appeals to me. Many of them also have curling cigar smoke added in thin, grey watercolour. The artist has even included a thick, black table top for his silhouetted men to place their tankards on!
Many of the silhouettes are mounted on printed cards bearing the legend:
GRUSS AUS DEM KGL. HOFBRÄUHAUS MUNCHEN.
(Greetings from the Royal Brewery House in Munich).
Which tells me exactly where these extraordinary silhouettes were made.
The Munich Hofbräuhaus
This world-famous beer hall still exists in Munch today. So naturally, when the opportunity arose to visit Munich last month, I took some time out to visit it and raise a glass or to Gebhard Wagner!
The building is huge, occupying almost an entire city block. The ground floor is entirely given over to beer drinking, with customers crowded together on long, heavy, oak tables. The central area has a high, vaulted, and vividly-painted ceiling.
Walking through this space you quickly discover other, equally-large rooms, connected in all directions, as well as a large outside courtyard. All are full of customers drinking beer, seated together on long benches next to equally long tables. Despite this huge floor area, when we visited on a Monday evening, it was not so easy to find a space to sit!
How did Wagner work here?
Whilst enjoying a litre of beer and some German sausages we were approached a number of times by wandering vendors. Mostly they were selling oversized Bavarian pretzels, or Hofbräuhaus souvenirs. However, I quickly realised this may have been the way the young Wagner began his own career as a silhouettist.
Maybe it was the beer, but I found it surprisingly easy to imagine him, wandering from table to table, with a small book of sample silhouettes. He would approach people at each table and ask to cut their portraits. Interested customers would naturally budge up along the bench to make room for him, while the artist quickly wielded his scissors to cut them out.
Afterwards he would arrange the silhouettes on a set of blank postcards, adding hands holding cigars and beer tankards. These, he perhaps cut in advance to save time on the day. He would then glue them all down using a small pot of glue, and finally – with a deft flourish – add cigar smoke with a small paintbrush produced from one of his many pockets and dipped in beer.
What an effect it must have had! Imagine the laughter accompanying each card as he showed it around the table.
Who was Gebhard Wagner?
Unusually for silhouettists of the period, quite a lot is known about Wagner. A collector of silhouettes in Germany sent me an article he found, about the artist, published on 30th June 2007 by the Oberallgäu Kurier, a local newspaper. This well-researched article tells me that Gebhard Wagner was born on 17 June 1873 in Immenstadt, not far from the border with Austria. He studied at the Knirr painting school, and then at the Fine Art Academy in Munich, even then expressing an interest in paper cutting.
Later, his silhouettes became so popular that the entire artistic and scientific community of Munich – as well as notable personalities from all over Germany – began sitting for him “at the scissors”. On the 17th June 1943 the Oberallgäuer Nationalzeitung published a congratulatory article, on the occasion of the artist’s 70th birthday, which stated:
There is probably no personality of note and renown from 1900 to the World War who did not have their silhouette made by him.
The article goes on to say that Wagner lived in Munich and often exhibited there at the Glaspalast. As well as cutting silhouette portraits, he became known for his portrait miniatures on ivory and his gold etchings. He was also successful as an engraver and apparently painted oil paintings of landscapes “reflecting the joyful splendour of colours at every time of day and season”.
Although I’ve tried, I’ve sadly not been able to find any examples of these paintings online.
The same German collector also sent me a self-portrait by Wagner, which I found fascinating. He looks very like some of the men he was cutting 40 years earlier at the Hofbräuhaus! I love the way he cuts wing collars, and would have very much liked to see him in action. This silhouette seems to reveal him as a fun and quirky, bespectacled character: a welcome guest at any beer-hall table.
Gebhard Wagner passed away on 11th August 1954 in Munich, aged 81.
Some Wagnerian Silhouettes and Studio Work
His beer-house silhouettes represent, for me, the best of his work. However, the majority of his silhouettes (and there are many, many of them) are cut in the more usual bust-length cameo style. Their scale and style varies over the years, but it’s evident that silhouettes remained an important part of his artistic output throughout his life. The cards they are mounted on contain various studio addresses in Munich which he used over the years. Some of these are street addresses, whilst others are the temporary studios he set up at large exhibitions taking place in Munich at the time. These include the 1910 Ausstellung Exhibition and the 1922 Deutsche Gewerbeschau.
Whilst in Munich last month I rented a Lime bike and cycled to a number of these addresses to see what I could find. Sadly, there was little to see.
A Fruitless Search
The lack of existing buildings where he once had studios is perhaps to be expected. In 1945, at the end of World War II, fierce fighting reduced 90% of Munich to rubble. Since that time, much of the historic old town in Munich has been carefully rebuilt to look much as it did before the war. However, silhouettist’s studios were evidently not high on the list of buildings to be restored!
One studio address I visited was 27 Oberanger, today a multi-story car park. Another address, at 51 Augenstrasse, is today a very modern (and quite expensive looking) apartment building. The Ausstellungspark – home to several major exhibitions where Wagner is known to have worked – is currently closed in preparation for the Munich Oktoberfest.
Perhaps more surprising, however, is the lack of success I’ve had in finding online images of any of the paintings, miniatures or engravings mentioned in the Oberallgäu Kurier article. If you’ve ever come across any of this work, do please let me know. In the meantime, the only other artwork I’ve found is a rather kitsch, nostalgic image of an eighteenth-century officer, with a small bird alighting on his outstretched finger, cut and signed by Wagner in 1915.
On the one hand, this image shows me that the artist was capable of complex and dextrous scissor work. But, personally speaking, I much prefer the rough-and-ready, choppy realism of his beer-hall silhouettes. What do you think?
Another fascinating blog. I find it so enjoyable reading Charles’ writing as he knows so much about something that I know nothing about, but makes it intriguing and accessible. The small detail of the artist dipping his paintbrush into the beer draws you in, I can hear the cacophony of the beer hall, the laughter of the drinkers as the silhouettist paints the smoke with a beery flourish. Thank you
Thank you David. The beer dipping was an embellishment by me. I’ve no evidence for it, but I know beer makes a good binder for pigment, and it would been easier than carrying a pot of water around a crowded beer hall.
You have described G. Wagner’s Hofbräuhaus silhouettes very aptly and sensitively. Your decision to visit the place where Gebhard Wagner created his silhouettes is the best way to understand his work and appreciate it properly. And you have succeeded in doing so.
Incidentally, these beer hall silhouettes were mentioned in 1907 in Richard Härtel’s antiquarian catalogue No. 44 from Dresden. On page 42 it says: ‘Wagner, Gebh. (Munich) has cut silhouettes of Munich’s philistine. Exhibited in Leipzig in 1906.’
Richard Härtel was probably not in the Hofbräuhaus, otherwise he would not have commented so disparagingly on the figures that Gebhard Wagner depicted so authentically in their milieu.
It is wonderful how you are reviving this almost forgotten artist. Thank you very much for your work and efforts.
Thank you Hans. That’s a fascinating snippet of information: Munich’s philistine! It seems to be a recurring theme that silhouette portraits were not thought of as “proper” art, so really talented artists were often looked down upon.
I have a Gebhard Wagner portrait in oil on canvas in my collection. Which is not unlike his silhouettes. He preferred the profile composition even while painting. I have seen other similar examples as well. I am surprised he is not better known, as he seems somewhat like the Bavarian Henri de toulouse-lautrec. Perhaps not as edgy and avant-guard, but similar spirit…
That’s fascinating. I’d love to see a photo if you have time to post one.
Here is the example of his work dated 1916 attached:
Thank you for sending this.
You’re welcome!