Anton Gag

Anton Gag (12 June 1859 – 22 May 1908) was a Sudeten-American painter and studio photographer known for his portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and murals. Immigrating to the United States at the age of 14 similar to his relations in 1873, he far along settled in New Ulm, Minnesota, where he spent most of his functional life.

Together with additional local painters, Gag garlanded altars and walls of several churches in the area. He and a partner in crime also produced a large panorama later than eleven panels on the Dakota War of 1862. One of his paintings of the Battle of New Ulm hangs in the Minnesota Capitol building.

Anton Gág (also spelled "Gaag") was born in 1859 as the last of five kids in his relations in Walk (now Valcha), a hamlet of 15 homes, which is allowance of today's Stráž in western Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now Czech Republic). The relations were Sudeten German Catholics. His father George Gaag was a wood craftsman and his mommy Theresia Hamperl-Heller (b. 1821) was the legitimized daughter of a sheepherder.

His associates immigrated to the United States in 1873, when Gaag was 14; his older sister had earlier emigrated there. They first approved in St. Paul, Minnesota, a city upon the Mississippi River. (He misused the spelling of his surname to "Gag" after some era in the US.) By the mature he was growing in the works there, the city had grown to 30,000 people. For a time he lived like his older brother Joseph, a tailor. In the 1875–76 city directory, Gag identified as an "artist". By 1878–79 he was effective as a "cigar maker".

In 1880 Gag moved to New Ulm, an immigrant community along the Cottonwood River. It had many residents who were ethnic German and Bohemian, and most of his associates had decided here. He was befriended by August Schell, founder of Schell's Brewery. The older man acted as a mentor and patron, commissioning Gag to paint murals in a guest house.

That year Schell also approved for Gag to attend art researcher in Chicago, likely the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and to laboratory analysis for a grow old in Milwaukee. After his reward to New Ulm, Gag earned most of his income through his photography studio, especially portraits and the popular cartes-de-visite. He pursued involved as an artist, although it did not earn him much money.

In 1886, Gag married Ida Berndt. She died the neighboring year of complications from child birth. Their infant daughter died a month later.

In 1892 the teenage widower Gag married Elizabeth (known as Lissi) Biebl of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whose associates had migrated to Minnesota. They were well-educated immigrants from Kscheutz (Ksire), Bohemia. Lissi had worked as his partner in his photography studio. They raised a relations of seven kids in the German tradition. He was known to permit his children much liberty and was non-conforming in his personal behavior. His simulation and art were formed by the avant-garde humanist values of the German-Bohemian culture.

In 1894, Gag built a Queen-Anne style family home that he ornamented with murals. He reserved a room in it for his photographic studio. He also painted works upon canvas and board. With other local artists Alexander Schwendihger and Christian Heller, he decked New Ulm's Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, built in 1883 in the German Baroque style. They created an altar and painted ceiling murals that were same to usual church belt in Bohemia. The trio next worked in 1898 for St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Zumbro Falls, Minnesota. Heller and Gag renovated the Congregational Church in New Ulm that year.

Together subsequently Heller, Gag collaborated upon a large panorama of the Dakota War of 1862, telling about the second fight of New Ulm. These works, often devoted to historical events, were severely popular. This panorama had 11 panels, each 7 x 10 feet, and painted upon a long roll of fabric. It was favorably received. The resolved of Heller and Gag next performed interior decoration of homes and clubs, painted Fall curtains for theatres, and at get older employed stirring to 30 workmen for their many projects.

Gag painted an estimated 60 works: his 1904 painting Battle of New Ulm (1904) depicted allocation of the Dakota War. It is displayed in the Minnesota State Capitol.

Gag died at age 48 in New Ulm, Minnesota in 1908 from tuberculosis. He is buried in the New Ulm City Cemetery. His daughter, Wanda Gág (who added the accent to her name), became a highly praised author and player in her own right. She continued to sentient in the family house after her parents died.

The house where the Gag intimates lived, at 226 N. Washington, New Ulm, is now known as the Wanda Gág House. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is read for public tours. The house has been preserved and is operated as a museum to say the version of this family, showing examples of their art and exaggeration of liveliness during their residence. The exterior of the house has been restored to the indigenous colors of the period following the Gag intimates lived there, including Wanda after her parents died. The interior is with being restored to that period period. The process has outside detailed, decorative hand-painting ended by Gag and Wanda upon walls throughout the house.