Maria Cyrenius

_{Lockstedt 1872 - 1959 Klosterneuburg}

Maria Cyrenius was born in Lochstedt, East Prussia, in 1872. As she was orphaned at a very young age, her legal guardian commanded her education in a practical direction. After a housekeeping schooling, she was permitted to complete an education as a drawing teacher at the Art School Berlin in 1890. It was not yet believed that women were capable of making a living as an artist. Only men were admitted to the Academy. Women were only able to access the respective tuition through private workshops and at Schools of Arts and Crafts. Thus, her way led to the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna in 1900, where Maria Cyrenius studied painting and enamel painting with Alfred Roller and Felician Myrbach amongst her teachers. Several study visits led the artist to Munich, Berlin, Paris and Rome, as well as to Cuno Amiet in Switzerland. Starting in 1917, Cyrenius became the student of Johannes Itten in his painting school in Vienna. She also followed him to the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919, but returned to Salzburg in 1920. There, she conducted an immensely successful enamel workshop until moving to Vienna in 1937. The works of the artist were displayed in the Viennese gallery Miethke, but also in Brussels, Munich, Paris and Leipzig. Maria Cyrenius passed away in Klosterneuburg in 1959.