Fredy Koschitz and Her Family Ties
Fredy Koschitz and Her Family Ties
UGM Kabinet, Strossmayerjeva 6
14 January – 16 April 2023
curator: Andreja Borin, museum counsellor
Maribor Art Gallery presents the work of the female painter Fredy Koschitz (1914–2001) who lived and worked in Maribor from 1941 to 1945. We are glad that her name has not faded from memory and that we can restore another artist's rightful place in the fine arts. The paintings of Fredy Koschitz are once more being presented to the public exactly eighty years after the painter's solo exhibition in Maribor, in 1943.
"The path to discovering Fredy Koschitz was rather unusual. Maribor Art Gallery holds two of her paintings, but virtually nothing was known about the artist. During the preparations of the exhibition Ladies first! Women Artists from Styria 1850–1950 at the Neue Galerie Graz, the curator of that exhibition, Dr Gudrun Danzer, was researching female artists in Styria, and the name Fredy Koschitz was listed as well. This sparked my interest, as until then we had mistakenly thought that Fredy was a man! The knot began to unravel when I also came across the name of Elza Obereigner in an archive document on registered family members at a Ljubljana address. She was the artist's aunt and the first trained Slovenian sculptor. Her works were first presented to the public as late as 2018–2019 at the City Museum of Ljubljana under curator Barbara Savenc." (Andreja Borin, curator)
We grew to know the life story of Fredy Koschitz (born Malec, 1914–2001) and also the family ties that connect her with her aunt Elsa Kastl Obereigner (1884–1973), sculptor, painter, and miniaturist, and with her cousin Elizabeta Charlotte Obereigner, married name Hribar, also a sculptor, who later created under the name Liza Hribar (1913–1996). Koschitz's first daughter, Karin Woschitz (b. 1941), also works as a sculptor.
The exhibition at the UGM Kabinet displays paintings by Fredy Koschitz and documentary material related to the artist. A smaller selection of works by female artists connected by family ties will also be part of the exhibition.
Biographies of women artists
Elza Kastl Obereigner
Elisabeth Charlotte Obereigner
Fredy Koschitz
Karin Woschitz
Works for the exhibition are on loan from:
Neue Galerie Graz, Universalmuseum Joanneum, Austria
Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana
Maribor Regional Museum
Private collectors