Johann Conrad Werdmüller (10 November 1819,

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

- 3 September 1892,

Freiburg im Breisgau Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic German, Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population o ...

) was a Swiss illustrator and engraver.

Biography

He was the only son of Salomon Werdmüller and his wife Margarethe, née Bertschinger. They both died when he was still quite young, so he and his sister were raised in an orphanage. After finishing school, he served an apprenticeship with Georg Christoph Friedrich Oberkogler (1774-1856), an engraver. He was also taught lithography. Upon completing his training there, he made copies of a large cycle of murals in the cloister of

Töss Monastery Töss Monastery was a community of Dominican nuns located in the former Swiss city of Töss, now a part of Winterthur. Nothing of the original buildings exists today. Construction of the monastery began in 1233, near the bridge at the Töss Ri ...

, on behalf of , an engineer who wanted to preserve them before the cloister was demolished.Silvia Volkart: ''Bilderwelt des Spätmittelalters. Die Wandmalereien im Kloster Töss.'' Chronos, Zürich 2011, . After 1838, he continued his education at the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

, where he became friends with

Gottfried Keller Gottfried Keller (19 July 1819 – 15 July 1890) was a Swiss poet and writer of German literature. Best known for his novel '' Green Henry'' (German: ''Der grüne Heinrich'') and his cycle of novellas called ''The People from Seldwyla'' (''Die Leu ...

, whose works he would later help illustrate. He also studied with the Swiss engraver, Samuel Amsler. From 1846 to 1848, he worked as independent engraver in Paris, working from the same building as

Arnold Böcklin Arnold Böcklin (16 October 182716 January 1901) was a Swiss symbolist painter. Biography He was born in Basel. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin (b. 1802), was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk tra ...

and

Rudolf Koller Rudolf Koller (21 May 1828 – 5 January 1905) was a Swiss painter. He is associated with a realist and classicist style, and also with the essentially romantic Düsseldorf school of painting. Koller's style is similar to that of the realist pai ...

. In 1848, he returned to Zürich. In 1853, he discovered that he had a talent for teaching, after serving as a substitute teacher at the Industrieschule. After two years of teaching there, he was given an assignment to teach figure drawing as part of the preparatory course at the building school of the newly founded Polytechnikum. He held this position for thirty-five years. In addition, he worked at the High School for Women and at the

University of Zürich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

. In the 1870s, he received a lifetime appointment as senior instructor at the Industrieschule.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Werdmuller, Johann Conrad 1819 births 1892 deaths Swiss engravers Swiss lithographers Artists from Zürich Academic staff of ETH Zurich