Ski Art: Otto Barth (1876-1916)

Otto Barth was a sickly child. To gain strength, he was taken to the mountains at age 16. The same year, he was admitted to the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts. Two years later, he teamed up with his artist friend Gustav Jahn for serious mountaineering. He died, probably of lead poisoning from his paints, at age 39.

Turn-of-the-century Vienna rivalled Paris with artistic experimentation. Barth socialized with a group of artists who rebelled against the progressive Secession movement to form the more radical Hagenbund. Going further still, he joined the short-lived Phalanx, which exhibited post-Impressionist and Jugendstil (art nouveau) paintings.

In 1910 Barth won the commission for the poster of the Salzkammergut resort region. The telemarking skier is shown in fine form, and in the correct Norwegian blue outfit. What’s striking is the use of color and shadow, as well as the depiction of snow itself.

The other illustration is the poster turned Werbemarke (advertising stamp) for the Wintersport-Ausstellung, the Winter Sport Exhibition of 1912. The image of a skier descending from the mountains is center stage, again using those hints of shadow. This was an important exhibition, organized by army officer Hermann Czant (Czant was an acolyte of Matthias Zdarsky and trained thousands of Imperial Army skiers), under the patronage of the Grandduchess Zita, who would become the last empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The exhibition was divided between the business of winter sports and the physical aspects of the sport itself. The top Vienna sporting goods shop, Mizzi Langer, was represented, as was Staub of Innsbruck. Norway sent representatives, and Norwegian ski outfits and British winter sports clothes dominated. One critic was thankful there were no new bindings (controversy then raged over binding design for Alpine skiing). On the resort side, Semmering showed a model of its ski jump, and there were other displays from Triberg, the Schwarzwald, the Arlberg and Innsbruck. The trail marking from the Erzgeberge was singled out positively.

There was also a good collection of winter posters and some paintings, too. The best of those were by Jahn and Barth. I like to think that the telemarking skier was one on view; it was painted before the year of the exhibition.