Egid Quirin Asam was the younger of the two ingenuous Asam brothers, he was born at Tegernsee in Upper Bavaria in 1692 and his older brother Cosmas Damian in 1686. Both are regarded founding fathers and key figures of Bavarian rococo.
Just like his brother Cosmas Damian Asam, Egid Quirin Asam, who was active as sculptor and stucco plasterer, but also as painter, etcher and architect, received his first lessons in arts from his father, the painter Hans Georg Asam. Additionally, he was an apprentice of the painter Andreas Faistenberger.
In Rome, whereto the Asam brothers traveled between 1711 and 1714, it was the art of Gianlorenzo Bernini that especially impressed Egid Quirin Asam. A little later, around the 1720s, his works were also influenced by French art, since the French style was particularly fashionable at the royal court in Munich in those days.
Together with his brother Cosmas Damian Asam, who was active as painter and architect, he made the most renowned works: the two brother ennoble church interiors to graceful artworks that combine painting, sculpting and architecture in a multifaceted and sensuous manner. The spatial art that the brothers Cosmas Damian Asam and Egid Quirin Asam created are characterized by theatrical light effects and decorations executed with great passion. In the Weltenburg monastery (1717-1736), whose architecture and paintings were executed by Cosmas Damian Asam, Egid Quirin Asam made one of his main works: the three-dimensional high altar with the saints George, Martin and Maurus.
His most consummate masterpiece, however, is the small Munich "Asam church" (1733-1746), a private chapel adjacent to the Asam residence, which Egid Quirin Asam intended as his burial place. Both the richly embellished facade as well as the exuberant interior are examples of Bavarian rococo at its best. What is especially remarkable is the lighting that ennobles this small room to a symbol of a vision of god.
Egid Quirin Asam, luminary of Southern German rococo, died in Mannheim in 1750.