As part of the lecture “Franz Čižek – Spielräume der Kunst“, as well as the subsequent art education tour/discussion with Bernadette Reinhold (art collection and archive), Rolf Laven (university professor, teaches and researches at the University of Applied Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Vienna University of Education) will talk about Franz Čižek (1865-1946) and Viennese youth art.

The painter Čižek is considered a reformer of art and education: he was the central figure of Austrian art education at the turn of the century and in the interwar period. His Viennese youth art classes, which he founded in 1897 in close proximity to the Viennese Secessionists, became the center of an internationally effective reform movement, recognized worldwide as the “Father of Art Education” with far-reaching and lasting appeal.

The appreciation and encouragement of children’s creativity, which could unfold in a supportive, enthusiastic environment, shook up the authoritarian regulatory concepts of public education. Čižek’s practical artistic work with children and his very successful exhibitions in Great Britain and the USA have been recognized and passed on to the present day by Rudolf Steiner, Maria Montessori, John Dewey and the English child art movement of Herbert Read as well as, to this day, by reform movements in Canada, the USA and Australia.

Prof. Dr. Rolf Laven, who works as an artist and art mediator in Vienna, traced the history of Čižek’s impact in interviews with contemporary witnesses and former students and documents the significance of his teaching and his school for Erika Giovanna Klien, Johannes Itten, Rudi Gernreich, Hans Hollein, Mark Rothko and ultimately Lill Tschudi, among others.