The Schmalzl family – An impressive art-influenced family history

We have a deeply rooted artistic tradition: Gunnar's great-great-grandfather is the famous artist Josef Moroder Lusenberg from Ortisei in Val Gardena.

Josef Moroder Lusenberg (* 1846 in Ortisei Val Gardena; † 1939)

The artist Josef Moroder Lusenberg is the most important Ladin painter. The last large exhibition of his works was in Innsbruck (A) in 1973. An exhibition of his water colors was in Bolzano (I) in 1985. From his large number of drawings, paintings and woodcarvings, the water colours are probably the least known of all. In these you can see his characteristic and independence, and the unusual artistic ability. Josef was the fourth of eight children. He lost his father when he was eight years old. After autodidactic drawing and carving attempts, he pulled to Munich. He was thirty, and at that time he was married for the second time. His first wife, Anna Maria Sanoner, died after the birth of the fourth child. The second wife was Felizita Unterplatzer, who bore him further eleven children. At the academy of arts in Munich his teachers were Knabl, Löffz and Dietz (1876-1880). From 1880-84 he was a pupil of Franz von Defregger. Here, Josef Moroder came also in contact with the local art currents, with the history and genre painting of Franz von Defregger, and with the idealism and realism of the two years older William Leibl. Through the friendship with Defregger, the art travels he made with him in the Trentino and the order to copy his pictures, Josef Moroder got in his own creations sometimes into considerable dependence of the extraordinarily admired master. Josef may have acquired the good nature observation already as a child in the rural environment and working in the fields and forest at the birth house of Scurcià in Ortisei. Countless sketches and drawings show his children and grandchildren. In the demanding water colour technique he portrayed a number of people, who were noticeable by their marked characteristics. They are realistic and the colours harmony with the background. This fine chromatic harmony is not only present in the excellent portraits, but also in the interiors, the old living rooms, kitchens and cabins and in the fresh landscape water colours of different seasons.