Margit Breuer

1934 - 2017  (83 years)

• Name	Margit Breuer
  Born	16 Sep 1934	, Czechoslovakia
  Gender	Female
  Interesting	life story, art
  Name	Margit Gatterbauer
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-121789
  Died	12 Dec 2017
  Person ID	I121789	Generations
  Last Modified	25 Apr 2024

  
  

  Family	Alfred Gatterbauer
  Children	1. Romana Gatterbauer
  Last Modified	26 Apr 2024
  Family ID	F54798	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  Margit Gatterbauer's art Created by Kitchener artist Margit Gatterbauer, the vibrant mosaic called Life was originally commissioned for the Riverdale Hospital (renamed Bridgetown Hospital in 2002) that will soon be torn down to create more green space. Its 250,000 pieces of ceramic were painstakingly dismantled and reconstructed on the west side of the new hospital, facing the Don River and Valley. Artists have spent the past nine months restoring the work, which is eight feet high and 80 feet long. Fittingly for a hospital, the mural’s theme is the sustainability of life, showing the composite unity of objects and symbols ranging from the sun, family, rocks, earth, forest and water. Mountains and rocks symbolize the obstacles we struggle to conquer. In Pictures: Bridgepoint Hospital. (2013). The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2 January 2018, from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/in-pictures-bridgepoint-hospital/article8407801/

  
  

• Notes

  LIFETIMES: Artist leaves behind a legacy of brilliant colour and imagination Margit Gatterbauer of Kitchener; Born: Sept. 16, 1934, in the Czech Republic; Died: Dec. 12, 2017, of kidney failure Art was as natural to Margit Gatterbauer as breathing, her talent seemingly endless as she created stained glass, landscape and impressionistic paintings, tapestry, jewelry and even enamel on copper works. She also experimented with glass-blowing and worked with blocks of plastic embedded with glass. Everything Margit did was unique and exuded boundless energy and colour. Though Margit's name has faded from public view over time, the 83-year-old Kitchener artist left an incomparable body of work. If artists have a particular style that identifies them, Margit's style was one of wild imagination and skill, though she is perhaps best known locally for stained-glass windows. Margit's work graces many beautiful sanctuaries, including St. Peter's Lutheran and St. Mark's Lutheran in Kitchener, First United in Waterloo as well as churches in Guelph, Toronto, Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Her enamel on copper pieces grace universities, schools and churches and her stunning mosaics can be found in universities and hospitals including a mosaic entitled "Life: A Mosaic" completed in 1962 and originally mounted on a curved wall in Toronto's former Riverdale Hospital. The mosaic is 2.5 metres high and 26 metres long, contains 600,000 glass tiles and took the artist two and a half years to complete. The work was moved to Bridgepoint Hospital, where a plaque describes the piece as "showing a family in a scene of earth and the heavens. It was intended to inspire and encourage hospital patients with imagery showing the richness of life.".... The artist was born Margit Breuer, one of two daughters in what is now the Czech Republic. As her daughter Romana Frey explained, in the late 1940s residents of German descent were forced out of the country. "So that's when my mother and her family moved to Linz, Austria," she said. Settling in Linz in 1948, the family continued its long tradition of fine jewelry craftsmanship. Surrounded by such creativity it wasn't surprising young Margit's artistic side was piqued, though her father tried to discourage his headstrong daughter from pursuing a career in art. He did not win that argument and she studied at the University of Art and Design Linz. After the death of her father, Margit's task was to create the sample collection for the family jewelry business, a task that helped refine her abilities working with precious metals and jewels. Yet another tragedy, the flooding of the Danube River in 1954, destroyed the family's home and workshops. It was largely because of the first place winnings of Margit for a mosaic mural competition that they were able to rebuild.. She met her husband, Alfred Gatterbauer, when her sister Johanna's date brought the young man to their home. "They invited me in '96 her father had died by then '96 I was telling her stories of my life," Alfred recalled. Both Margit and her mother were impressed with this tall, handsome and adventurous young man who climbed mountains for fun when he was wasn't at school studying cabinet making. Alfred was also a handball player, inviting Margit and her mother to a game: Upper Austria vs. Salzburg. This first impression must have been enough to woo young Margit because they married in June 1956 then moved to Canada two years later, directly to Kitchener where there was a well established German speaking population if not a thriving art scene...... Hill, V. (2018). LIFETIMES: Artist leaves behind a legacy of brilliant colour and imagination. TheRecord.com. Retrieved 2 January 2018, from https://www.therecord.com/whatson-story/8031312-lifetimes-artist-leaves-behind-a-legacy-of-brilliant-colour-and-imagination/