Ende März 2010 veröffentlichte die Münchner ABENDZEITUNG einen ganzseitigen Artikel über meinen Großvater, den Kunstmaler Fritz-München. Natalie Kettinger hat die Erlebnisse meiner Großeltern aus 1001 Nacht im Indien der 1930er Jahre spannend erzählt:
Der Maler der Maharadschas
Here the article in English:
ABENDZEITUNG Munich: March 27/28, 2010
Magical: An artist makes his career in the Orient
The painter of the Maharajas
How Hannes Fritz, graduate of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, became the portraitist of India’s nobility.
By Natalie Kettinger
The pictures from the past are pin sharp: Hannes Fritz is nonchalant and leans against the ship’s rail. He wears a white shirt, knickerbockers, tennis shoes. He smiles and gives his wife Editha a hug. They kiss each other. It is their honeymoon. The steamer „Strath Naver“ brings the two turtle doves to India. Hannes Fritz has caught every single detail of the 1932 passage on 11-mm film material.
Today, his grandson Konstantin looks at the moving pictures. Soon, the 29-year-old from Seeshaupt will go on the same journey on which his grandfather once reached the stars as the court painter of the Maharajas: In the 1930s, he portrayed under the name Fritz Munich princes, princesses, ministers, governors and the viceroy of the British Colony. The Indian High Society courted the graduate of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. He was the star guest at their banquets and in their palaces. He became rich and famous. But the Second World War knocked the success of the Indian fairy-tale on the head.
A caricature opens the gates of the palaces to the German artist
Munich’s residents would almost have gotten an impression of the painter’s fabulous journeys. His family had offered two paintings to the makers of the actual Maharaja exhibition in Munich. “We would have liked to place his portraits in the exhibit”, says Wolf-Dieter Fritz, the painter’s son. “Unfortunately, this did not happen.”
Back to the “Strath Naver”, with which numerous Indian nobles travel in 1932. In that time it is quite modern for South Asia’s sovereigns to make a trip to Europe – as well as to throw a masked ball. They have a carnival night on board. Editha Fritz disguises herself as a Bavarian boy, her husband as a pavement painter. He sketches the Maharaja of Udaipur with few chalk lines on the floor. One can easily recognize the Indian sovereign with the enormous turban and the even more enormous belly. The nobleman apparently has got humor. “The Maharaja thought it was great that my grandfather had caught him so clearly and quickly”, says Konstantin Fritz. “So great that he said: Come to my court.”
Fritz Munich does not think twice about the offer. The Rhineland-Palatinate born artist gave a new direction to his life already once. 1923, when he quit his job as a banker at Dresdner Bank and applied successfully at the Academy of Fine Arts. Now he is heading to the Maharaja Palace of Udaipur – why not!
But the German has to prove himself before he is allowed to portray the foreign sovereign. The Maharaja sends his grand marshal as a model ahead. And while Fritz Munich paints the man with the strong eyes, the sovereign is curious and looks over his shoulder. The result satisfies. Fritz Munich has got the job – and is recommended to other courts. The painter and his wife travel from palace to palace. His father crossed the Suez Channel 20 times between 1932 and 1937 on the way from Germany to Asia and back, says Wolf Dieter Fritz. There is lots to do for the portraitist in the colonial India with its about 600 half autonomous principalities.
His involvement with the court of Mandi almost costs the globetrotter’s life. “The crown prince of Mandi was after my mother. She was a cheerful and good-looking woman. He just fell in love with her”, tells Wolf Dieter Fritz. The nobleman decides to get rid of the beautiful dancer’s husband. He invites him to a dromedary ride and calls for a race. Both humps side by side, the camels rush away, when Munich realizes that his surcingle is not tightened. He latches onto the animal – and stays unhurt. But the crown prince does not give up. When Munich takes another ride, this time on a hot-blooded stallion, the heir apparent has his stable-lads walk classy mares along the trail. The stallion goes crazy and chases the mares. The horse dashes in full galopp into the stable. The horseman can pull in his head just in time. Otherwise he would have crashed with the stable door.
A guru prophesies the artist an early death
Now the artist has got enough, he takes vengeance: “My father rode circles on the prince’s tennis court until it looked like a freshly plowed field. Then my parents departed.” After all, there were enough Maharaja courts in India.
Fritz Munich also paints spiritual leaders like the saint of Mount Abou. The session takes three days. Three days, during which the wise man prophesies to the painter. Wolf Dieter Fritz: “He predicted that he would have three sons. That there would break out a war, in which whole nations destroy one another. And that he would not live longer than his 60th birthday.”
In fact, Editha gives birth to three sons in the following years, and Europe becomes a battlefield. Therefore, his beloved India is out of reach for Fritz Munich. “With outbreak of the war, all Germans were detained in camps. This would have happened to my father, too. In spite of his good connections.”
The artist retreats to Seeshaupt, where he buys a house, in which the family resides to this day. There he waits for his end. “The prophecy had put a heavy weight on him. He immediately wrote his last will and told me what to do after his death”, the son remembers. But this time, the guru was wrong. Fritz Munich lives a long life at Lake Starnberg. He only dies in 1981 at the age of 85.
He leaves behind numerous paintings, hundreds of black-white photographs of his journeys, several hours of film material and last but not least the fascination for India. Together with filmmaker Walter Steffen, grandson Konstantin now wants to search for his grandfather’s traces on the subcontinent. The working title of the project: “Munich in India”.
Several paintings of Fritz Munich will be auctioned on May 15 in Heidelberg. Information: http://www.kunst-und-kuriosa.de
Subtitles to the photographs
Big photograph
The grand marshal of the Maharaja of Udaipur. Munich portrayed him first, and then the ruler.
Small photograph, top right
The painter as a young man with Tyrolean hat: Fritz Munich was born in Rhineland-Palatinate and settled later at Lake Starnberg.
Small photograph, central right
The saint of Mount Abou never wanted to have a photograph taken of him. Munich was allowed to portray him. He predicted to the painter an early death.
Small photographs, central
Fritz Munich paints the Maharaja of Faridkot (l.) and the crown prince of Mandi, who was out to kill him later on. The nobleman had fallen in love with the painter’s wife.
Bottom left
Hannes Fritz alias Fritz Munich together with his wife Editha on board of the “Strath Naver”. The steamer brings the couple to India.
Bottom central
He collects today his father’s paintings: The Munich based lawyer Wolf Dieter Fritz
Bottom right
Konstantin Fritz in front of one of his grandfather’s paintings. It shows the studio and the house in Seeshaupt, where the family still lives today.
Translation: Konstantin Fritz
Im Zuge der Recherchen ist das Foto des Porträts der Mohammedanerin wieder aufgetaucht. Es handelt sich um eine mohammedanische Prinzessin aus Lahore. Auf die Rückseite des Fotos schreibt Fritz-München folgendes:
Blog von Konstantin Fritz 
