This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  The following biography, submitted September 2005, is from the artist's son, Joseph Fleck, Jr:
Joseph
Amadeus Fleck, born of German speaking parents in the village of
Sziklos, Austria-Hungary on August 25, 1892, saw the American Southwest
through Viennese eyes. He received his first education in the
arts at the Kunstgewerbeschule or Institute of Applied Arts in Vienna,
which he entered in 1908. There he studied lithography, etching,
and ornamental engraving, receiving a diploma around 1911.
Shortly
thereafter he entered Vienna's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he
studied under Hans Tichi, and Rudolf Bacher, two members of the
Austrian Succession group. Other members of this movement,
founded in 1897 to break away from more traditional styles of painting,
were Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Oscar Kokoschka.
Pre-war
Vienna, the hub of a vast multi-racial, multi-cultural Empire, was the
original source of Fleck's artistic vision. But an epoch ended
with the shots fired at Sarajevo. In 1915, Fleck was called into the
army, as were many of his Academy classmates. Shortly thereafter he
arrived on the Italian front. His artistic talents were soon
discovered by officers of his regiment, and he became recognized as the
unofficial regimental artist. In 1916 he returned to Vienna as a
lieutenant to spend the remaining war years painting war heroes and
important government figures. He completed his training at the
Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1919.
In 1922, he emigrated to
the United States, arriving in Kansas City, Missouri. He began
working at a stained-glass factory owned by Tiffany and Co, rising to
the position of chief designer. His solid training in portraiture
soon enabled him to receive many portrait commissions. Among the
most notable of these were the portrait of Confederate General George
Franklin Paxton, now hanging in the Museum of the Virginia Historical
Society; and the portrait of Mayor Albert I. Beech of Kansas
City. Both were painted in 1924.
In early 1924, Fleck
visited an exhibition of paintings by members of the Taos Society of
Artists in a Kansas City Art Gallery. His curiosity aroused, he
visited Taos in the summer of 1924. In 1925, he married Mable
Davidson Mantz and returned to Taos to become a permanent
resident. With the exception of extended painting trips to Europe
in 1926 and 1930-1931 and three years as Dean of Fine Arts at the
University of Missouri at Kansas City, he remained a resident of Taos
until 1973. He died in Pleasanton, California in 1977.
Among
his prizes and honors were the bronze medal of the Kansas City Art
Institute, 1923, the silver medal of the Kansas City Art Institute,
1929, the Morris Rosenwald prize of the Art Institute of Chicago,
1927. He was also a contributor to juried national and
international exhibitions sponsored by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts, the Carnegie Foundation, the Corcoran Gallery, the National
Academy of Design, the Toledo Museum, and the World's Fairs in New York
and San Francisco in 1939.
One-man shows included the Houston
Museum, 1930; Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris, 1931; and the Nelson
Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, 1944. Fleck was a member of
the Artist's Equity Association and the Chicago Galleries
Association. He served as president of the Taos Artist's
Association from 1947 to 1949.
Fleck's early Taos paintings
were executed in a distinctive but somewhat academic style. His
style, however, evolved continuously throughout his career, ultimately
touching on the impressionistic. But Fleck never forgot his
Austrian roots and his attraction to Austrian expressionism.
Fleck's
work is represented in the Österreichsiches Museum im Oberen Belvedere,
Vienna, Austria, as well as numerous American Museums and private
collections.
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Biography from Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery Santa FeTucson:
|  Joseph Amadeus Fleck was born in the village of Sziklos, in Austro-Hungary, in 1892. He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Institute of Applied Arts) in Vienna, where he studied lithography, etching and engraving. Afterwards, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna, where he studied under two teacher, Hans Tichi and Rudolph Bacher, who were members of the Austrian Succession Group that included Gustav Klimt.
World War came in 1914, and Fleck was drafted into the Army a year later and deployed to the Italian front. Luckily for him, his artistic skills earned him an unofficial position as the regimental artist and, upon his return to Vienna after his first tour of duty, he was given a position painting patriotic images and portraits of notable government and military figures. After the cessation of hostilities, he finished his studies at the Academy of Fine Art and then, several years later, emigrated to the United States.
His first stop was Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked as the chief designer of Tiffany's stained-glass operation there. He painted a number of portraits of important personages around Kansas City, including the mayor, before he attended an art exhibition that would forever change his life.
In 1924, two years after arriving in Kansas City, Fleck saw a show put on by the Taos Society of Artists in a gallery of Kansas City. An ode to the beauty of New Mexico and its inhabitants by a group of skilled, classically-trained artists, the show moved Fleck to visit Taos in the summer of that year. He would move there one year later with his new bride, Mabel Davidson Mantz, and would live there full-time through 1973, excepting two painting trips to Europe and a three-year stint as Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
His painting style loosened from a fairly stiff and academic approach to something more impressionistic in nature. He painted landscapes, portraits and life scenes of the Indians of the region, using oil paints and pastels. He moved from Taos to Pleasanton, California in 1973, and died there four years later at the age of 85. |
Biography from Addison Rowe Fine Art:
|  The following biography, submitted September 2005, is from the artist's son, Joseph Fleck, Jr:
Joseph Amadeus Fleck, born of German speaking parents in the village of Sziklos, Austria-Hungary on August 25, 1892, saw the American Southwest through Viennese eyes. He received his first education in the arts at the Kunstgewerbeschule or Institute of Applied Arts in Vienna, which he entered in 1908.e.
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Joseph Fleck is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Taos Pre 1940
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