Viking Eggeling

(b Lund, 21 Oct 1880; d Berlin, 19 May 1925). Swedish draughtsman, film maker, painter and writer. After a limited education in Sweden he emigrated to Germany in 1897, where he received a commercial training at Flensburg that year. Around 1900 he began work as a bookkeeper at a watch factory in Le Locle in Switzerland, and from c. 1901 to c. 1907 he worked as a bookkeeper in Milan. There he attended the Accademi di Belle Arti di Brera in the evenings. In 1907 he obtained a post as a bookkeeper at the Lyceum Alpinum in Zuoz, Switzerland, where he was also allowed to teach art. His wife's ill-health forced him to resign the post and, after a visit to Essen in 1910, he moved to Paris (1911) and became acquainted with Arp, Modigliani, Othon Friesz and Moise Kisling; he was particularly impressed by the work of Andr? Derain, but he probably also studied the work of the Cubists.

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• Born: Oct 21, 1880 in Lund, Sweden
• Died: May 19, 1925 in Berlin, Germany
• Occupation: Director
• Active: '20s
• Major Genres: Avant-garde / Experimental
• Career Highlights: Symphonie Diagonale
• First Major Screen Credit: Symphonie Diagonale (1921)

Biography

Viking Eggeling was known as both a talented painter and an avant-garde filmmaker who since 1918 was closely associated with German artist Hans Richter. Eggeling was born in Lund, Sweden and went to Paris at age 17. He became a Dadaist in Switzerland a decade later. He and Richter were fascinated with the notion that paintings had rhythm and did many abstract experiments utilizing picture strips arranged in ways to explore the relationships between lines and space. While in Germany, he created assorted elaborately arranged scroll paintings. These scrolls seemed to naturally lead Eggeling and Richter to experiment with animation. Between 1921 and 1924, Eggeling worked steadily on the intricate drawings that would form his classic, highly influential abstract short Diagonal Symphony. Eggeling made two similar films, Parallel and Horizontal before he died of heart failure at age 45. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

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