Norbertine von Bresslern-Roth (1891-1978)

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Norbertine von Bresslem-Roth was born in 1891 in Graz, Austria.

 

Roth studied under Alfred Schrötter at the School of Arts in Graz from 1901 to 1910. From 1911 to 1916 she continued her studies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts under Ferdinand Schmutzer. It was here that she met her future husband, Georg Ritter von Bresslern und Sternau, whom she married in 1919 after returning to her home city. He was a great supporter of her work and helped her to develop her career. In the same year, she became a member of the "Werkbundes Freiland" group, which, under Fritz Silberbauer, was also engaged in the promotion of female artists. Bresslern-Roth was able to train her precise gift for observation at home and in the garden. In Dachau, Roth also attended Hans Hajek’s school for animal painting.

 

When she returned to Graz, Roth worked primarily as an animal painter and was considered on of Austria’s most important animal artists of her time.

 

From 1920, she became a pioneer of the linocut process - a technique that was then still in its infancy and which she perfected over the years. Aside from her animal paintings, she made a name for herself as an illustrator for school and children's books. She also produced tapestry and ivory miniatures. She rapidly achieved success with her artworks, her pictures sold well and her exhibitions at home and abroad were always very well attended. In 1928, she took a study-trip to North Africa. The sketches, photographs, watercolors and gouache paintings she created there served as a source of inspiration for her future artworks.

 

Roth went on a study trip to North Africa in 1928. This trip impacted her works such as Lions breaking into the Kraal and Dying Lion, pierced by arrows. Roth received several awards, among them the Golden Medal of the city of Graz in 1922, the Honorary Prize of the city of Vienna in 1934 and twice the Austrian State Medal. She was a member of the VBKÖ, the Austrian Association of Women artists. 

 

During the Anschluss she created some pictures that today are considered critical of the regime. For this reason, and because she did not divorce her husband, Georg Ritter von Bresslern (1892-1952), whom she married in 1918 and who was classified under Nazi legislation as "Half-Jew", she is today classified as part of the "cultural resistance".

 

She outlived her husband and passed away in Graz in 1978.

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