Eduardo Schlageter

Eduardo Schlageter (November 17, 1893 - August 21, 1974) was a Venezuelan-German painter.

Schlageter was born in Caracas, Miranda on November 17, 1893. His parents were Pius Schlageter and Laura Singre, who met in Germany and got married. After that, the couple moved to Venezuela in 1893 from the Grand Duchy of Baden where they lived. The reason for the family's move was because the government of Venezuelan President Antonio Guzmán Blanco hired Pius to take over the general management of the Venezuelan National Impress, as he was a widely known lithographer.

As soon as Schlageter reached the right age, he was sent to the Venezuelan German school in Caracas, where he studied until the age of 8. Then Eduardo was sent to Germany to study at a school until he finished high school. Throughout the school and high school years he often traveled during his vacations to Venezuela to join his family, and in 1913 he decided to continue his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, but in 1914, World War I interrupted his studies, and he returned to Venezuela.

In Venezuela, he joined the family lithography business and soon he entered / made contact with the most prominent artists and painters of the time. Here belong Raúl Santana and Leonico Martinez, the later founders of the Circle of Fine Arts of Venezuela. In 1915, he returned to Europe where he studied in Switzerland, a country he had chosen because of its neutrality before the war. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Geneva where his teachers, Ferdinand Hodler and Edouard Ravel, deeply influenced his style and interests.

In 1917, he moved to Paris on the advice of Ravel, and soon rose between the local painters. A few years later, in 1921, he moved to Venezuela, where he continued his career as a painter and worked with his father in the family business. He made several portraits, including that of the vice-president of Venezuela Juan Crisóstomo Gómez and many other soldiers.

Eduardo Schlageter married a wealthy lady, Carmen Boulton Pietri in March 1929, and four children were born from this marriage. In the 1930s he continued to paint Venezuelan landscapes and received French and Venezuelan awards. In 1942 he went to the Marcy Gallery in New York as a representative of a Venezuelan art committee and exhibited his creations, gaining considerable prestige.

In 1950 he suffered a heart attack and after that every year he went to the thermal baths in Bad Gastein, Germany where he continued to create more water paintings. After retiring in 1963 from the general guideline of the family business, he continued to travel frequently to Germany and have exhibitions both in Venezuela and in Europe on his paintings. During the decade of the 1960s, he and his family donated land for the construction of the Universidad Metropolitana (Metropolitan University) of Caracas, founded in 1970.

In 1972, he suffered several heart attacks and his health was seriously impaired. Two years later, he died at the age of 81 on August 21, 1974 in Caracas.