Karl Matzek

Who was Karl Matzek?

Karl George Matzek was an Austrian artist of Czech descent who is best noted for his panoramas of historic battles and murals of Biblical scenes in church buildings.

Matzek was a graduate of the Berlin Academy of Art. He was showing in museums and at better galleries of Europe at his artistic height and had been awarded various medals for his works,among them the gold medal by the Russian tsar for his "Battle of Borodin". He fought in the Austrian-Hungarian cavalry in World War I, and was imprisoned in Siberia after the October Revolution. He succeeded to escape and in the following years, he traversed the whole continent by foot. This part of his life has not been adequately clarified. On a winter day after World War II, he was found sick and half-frozen by villagers of Balatun in Bosnia and accepted in their midst in exchange for painting frescos in their churches. Until his recovery, Matzek was placed in the most honorable home in the community, of a young widow with three children, the mother of the sculptor Slobodan Pejić. For almost ten years, Matzek educated the boy, and married his mother. He was the only father the boy knew. They were inseparable and painted frescos together. The boy painted lower parts and Matzek painted upper parts.