Carlo Wostry

Carlo Wostry (18 February 186510 March 1943) was an Italian painter and illustrator.

Youth and early career

Carlo Wostry was born in Trieste. He was the son of Ferdinando Wostry and a Virginia Artelli. From 1882 to 1885 he studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. He then went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich and befriended the painter Umberto Veruda. After his return to Trieste in 1887, the 22-year-old Wostry created his first major work, Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross), that was later acquired by the Jesuit church of Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Trieste. He also published a series of satirical prints entitled The Martyrs of the Redemption: Austrian Trieste Under Italy.

Later career

After the First World War he became more preoccupied with religious themes in his work, and created pieces for Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Paris, Trieste Cathedral, Sant'Antonio Nuovo in Trieste as well as the Basilica of San Francesco, Ravenna.

In 1926 he travelled to the United States where he worked in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami. In 1930 Wostry was commissioned to work on St. Andrew's Church in Pasadena, and this was to become one of his most important projects. Originally commissioned only to make a mural for the apse, his clients were however so enthusiastic about his work that they entrusted to him the decoration of a side chapel and in 1932 with the representation of the Stations of the Cross. At the same time as he was working in the church, he was also commissioned to create murals for the home of Coralie Fitzharris-Milburn, also in Pasadena. Wostry returned to Trieste, where he prepared the 24 panels for the project, which were shipped to Pasadena in 1935.

In 1937 Wostry suddenly returned to Trieste, where he died on 10 March 1943.

Selected works Painting Stations of the Cross, Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Trieste, 1887 Portrait of Pietro Sartorio, Museo Sartorio, Trieste, 1888 Parco di villa Sartorio di Monebello, Museo Sartorio, Trieste Il sonno, Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte, Trieste Christ and Mary Magdalene, Saint-Roch, Paris, 1897 Martyrdom of St. Justus, Trieste Cathedral, 1900 Portrait of Erma Bossi Scena Boschereccia, Museo Revoltella, Trieste, 1902 The Stations of the Cross, St. Andrew's Catholic Church, Pasadena, 1935

Books Carlo Wostry (1934): Storia del circolo artistico di Trieste, Udine.