Adam Friedrich Oeser

Adam Friedrich Oeser in 1750
(Engraving from 1819 after an etching from 1750)

Painting by Oeser in St. Nicholas' Church, Leipzig

Adam Friedrich Oeser (February 17, 1717 in Pressburg - March 18, 1799 in Leipzig) was a German etcher, painter and sculptor. He worked and studied in Pressburg (student of Georg Raphael Donner in sculpture) and Vienna at the Vienna Academy (painting). In 1739 he went to Dresden, painted portraits, scenes for the Royal opera, and mural paintings in Castle Hubertsburg (1749), and removed to Leipzig in 1759. Appointed director of the newly founded Academy there in 1764, he zealously opposed mannerism in art and was a stout champion of Winckelmann's advocacy of reform on antique lines. His chief importance was as a teacher. He was the drawing teacher of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, with whom he kept up friendly relations afterward at Weimar. Besides a number of decorative works, mostly ceilings, he painted mythological and religious canvases and portraits, among the best being: "The Artist's Children" (1766, Dresden Gallery), "Marriage at Cana" (1777) and four others in Leipzig Museum, and "The Painter's Studio" (Weimar Museum). His best effort in sculpture is the monument of Elector Frederick Augustus (1780) on the Königsplatz in Leipzig, which he created together with his student and architect Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe.

In 1766 Oeser became member of the Masonic Lodge Minerva zu den drei Palmen Leipzig, 1776 he became member of the Balduin Leipzig.

Biography

• Durr, (Leipzig, 1879)
• This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.

External links

• Masonic Lodge Minerva zu den drei Palmen Leipzig

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