The artist Erich Schickling, 1924-2012
Erich Schickling was born in 1924 in Pickau (Czech Bykov) near Jägerndorf and came to Ottobeuren with his family in 1946. While still studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, he received his first commissions for designs in public and church spaces. With stained glass windows, mosaics and murals he created his works in more than 100 places in and beyond Bavaria. Alongside this, at his artist's home in Eggisried near Ottobeuren, there grew an extensive body of reverse glass paintings, large-format paintings on biblical and mythological themes, landscape pictures, designs and sculptural works, which can be seen today at the Erich Schickling Stiftung.
At this place in the Günztal he shaped his architecture and parkland over more than 60 years, and today it is a much-visited spot for art travellers, walkers and friends of nature and culture. His lifelong engagement with existential questions from religion, philosophy and poetry is reflected in his entire work. Erich Schickling was also called a mystic. He was bound to the earth, to creation, to beauty in all facets of life, and together with his wife he wanted to share it with people.
"What matters to me is to illuminate, through painting, the hidden meaning that is laid down within us.
'Again and again it is glass, directly, that is the medium which fascinates me: not to create likenesses, but to become inwardly aware, in the parable, of the transcendent in me and in everything."
Life of Erich Schickling
| 19. April 1924 | 19. April 1924 born in Pickau, today the Czech Republic (Bykov) |
| 1941 - 1942 | 1941 - 1942 Studies in applied art in Brünn |
| 1942 - 1945 | 1942 - 1945 War service |
| 1946 | 1946 Expulsion from his homeland and settlement with his parents in the Günztal near Ottobeuren |
| 1947 - 1952 | 1947 - 1952 Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, master student of Prof. Josef Hillerbrand |
| 1953 | 1953 Paris scholarship and Anniversary Foundation of the City of Munich |
| 1955 | 1955 Marriage to his wife Inge Trapp, a primary school teacher in Ottobeuren
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| 1993 | 1993 Masaryk - Medal in Prague |
| 1999 | 1999 Founding of the Erich Schickling Stiftung |
| 2005 | 2005 Unveiling of the bronze sculpture „Sonne-Symbol des Urlichtes“ at the Erich-Schickling-Stiftung by the Bavarian State Minister for Science, Art and Research Dr. Thomas Goppel |
| 2009 | 2009 Artist portrait on Bavarian Television "Aus Schwaben und Altbayern" by Dr. Georg Bayerle
„PRO SUEBIA“ prize for his artistic life's work from the Dr. Eugen Liedl Foundation |
| 2012 | 2012 died in Eggisried, Ottobeuren |
| 2014 | 2014 Radio portrait of Erich Schickling and Fritz König (sculptor) on BR 2 by Christoph Thoma |
Feature on Erich Schickling, his work and the Foundation, on Bayern 3 „Unter unserem Himmel“ by Klaus Röder |
