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Lefler, Heinrich
(b Vienna, 7 Nov 1863; d Vienna, 14 March 1919). Austrian painter, decorative artist and printmaker. He was the son of the Bohemian painter Franz Lefler (1831–98), a member of the Künstlerhaus in Vienna. From 1880 to 1884 he studied in Vienna at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste under Christian Griepenkerl (1839–1916) and in Munich at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste under Nikolaos Gysis and Wilhelm von Diez (1839–1907). He first produced genre paintings, fairy-tale motifs and landscapes in the manner of Diez, but from 1895 (two years before the foundation of the Vienna Secession) his work showed Jugendstil tendencies. In 1891 he became a member of the Künstlerhaus in Vienna. As a printmaker he concentrated on commercial art; in the later 1890s he was one of the first Austrian artists to design posters for companies (e.g. Auerlicht, 1896–7; see Schweiger, p. 121), public events and periodicals (e.g. Kunst und Kunsthandwerk). In 1898–9, with his brother-in-law Joseph Urban, he produced the Österreichischer Kalender (Vienna, Hist. Mus.). Between 1896 and 1900 he contributed folios of prints (e.g. Dancing) to the folio series Allegorien: Neue Folge. He also designed menus, theatre programmes, the first publisher’s mark and the standard title for music published by the famous Viennese firm Universal Edition (1901). With Urban he supplied designs for interior decoration (the Rathauskeller in Vienna, with frescoes from Viennese legends and history), furniture, folding screens, clocks, jewellery boxes, embroidery, fans, stage sets (he was chief scene painter for the Wiener Hofoper under Gustav Mahler in 1900–03) and festivals (e.g. the festive procession for the 60th jubilee of Emperor Francis Joseph I in 1908). In 1900 he founded the Hagenbund with Urban, acting as the first President in 1902 and a member until 1909. He produced posters for some exhibitions organized by the Hagenbund from 1902. From 1903 to 1910 he was a professor at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna.
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