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 as soon as his intimates in 1873, he complex settled in New Ulm, Minnesota, where he spent most of his operational life.

Together with supplementary local painters, Gag festooned altars and walls of several churches in the area. He and a partner also produced a large panorama similar to eleven panels upon 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 children in his intimates in Walk (now Valcha), a hamlet of 15 homes, which is ration of today's Stráž in western Bohemia, Austrian Empire (now Czech Republic). The family were Sudeten German Catholics. His father George Gaag was a wood craftsman and his mother Theresia Hamperl-Heller (b. 1821) was the legitimized daughter of a sheepherder.

His relatives immigrated to the United States in 1873, when Gaag was 14; his older sister had earlier emigrated there. They first granted in St. Paul, Minnesota, a city on the Mississippi River. (He untouched the spelling of his surname to "Gag" after some era in the US.) By the grow old he was growing going on there, the city had grown to 30,000 people. For a period he lived with his older brother Joseph, a tailor. In the 1875–76 city directory, Gag identified as an "artist". By 1878–79 he was vigorous 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 relatives 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 granted for Gag to attend art school in Chicago, likely the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and to breakdown for a epoch in Milwaukee. After his recompense to New Ulm, Gag earned most of his allowance through his photography studio, especially portraits and the popular cartes-de-visite. He pursued practicing as an artist, although it did not earn him much money.

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

In 1892 the juvenile widower Gag married Elizabeth (known as Lissi) Biebl of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whose family had migrated to Minnesota. They were well-educated immigrants from Kscheutz (Ksire), Bohemia. Lissi had worked as his co-conspirator in his photography studio. They raised a intimates of seven kids in the German tradition. He was known to allow his kids much pardon and was non-conforming in his personal behavior. His vibrancy and art were formed by the advocate humanist values of the German-Bohemian culture.

In 1894, Gag built a Queen-Anne style family home that he festooned with murals. He reserved a room in it for his photographic studio. He then painted works upon canvas and board. With new local artists Alexander Schwendihger and Christian Heller, he garlanded 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 similar to expected church fashion accessory in Bohemia. The trio in addition to 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 nearly the second fight of New Ulm. These works, often devoted to historical events, were highly popular. This panorama had 11 panels, each 7 x 10 feet, and painted on a long roll of fabric. It was appreciatively received. The definite of Heller and Gag along with performed interior ornamentation of homes and clubs, painted drop curtains for theatres, and at mature employed occurring 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 supplementary the accent to her name), became a applauded author and artist in her own right. She continued to sentient in the family house after her parents died.

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