KUBIN, ALFRED

born April 10, 1877, Leitmeritz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Litomerice, Czech Republic] died Aug. 24, 1959, Zwickledt, Austria Austrian graphic artist known for his drawings and paintings of dreamlike, often morbid, subjects. In 1898 Kubin went to Munich to study art, and in 1902 he had his first exhibition at the Cassirer Gallery in Berlin. He traveled in France and Italy in 1905 and following years, and during this period he met the French painter Odilon Redon, whose work, along with that of the Belgian painter James Ensor, was a major influence on Kubin. In 1906 Kubin settled at Zwickledt, Austria, where he was to remain for most of his life. He exhibited with the Blaue Reiter group in Munich in 1911 and at the Der Sturm Autumn Salon in 1913. The nightmarish world created by Kubin in his illustrations reflects his own neurotic personality. Images of death and of various bizarre animals are depicted in dim light against shadowy backgrounds, evoking a haunting expectation of some sinister turn of events. The books Kubin illustrated by such writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky seem to have been chosen on account of their macabre qualities. He also wrote a novel, Die andere Seite (1909; The Other Side).