Philipp Georg Braumüller: husband of Margarethe Havemann

Braumüller, Philip Georg

(Hohenlohehütte 16-09-1870 – 1927)

painter, printmaker and books illustrator. 

and was married to Margarethe Havemann in before posting. His birth place Hohenlohehütte, now Katowice, in Silesia in the South of what is now Poland. 

I found this nice painting of the Isle of Rügen with its iconic cretaceous cliff coast. Observing it having a closer look at his wife's woodblock print "Herbst" convinced me this print was also designed in Rügen and they worked together in this beautiful location, possibly spending their holiday. 

Closeby were the Hiddensee and not far away the Ahrenshoop artist colonies. In summer these wonderful locations and Dover-like Cliffs would have attracted hords of painters. Kandinsky (1866-1944) was here, Eugen Bracht (1842-1921 and Paul Emil Gabel (1875-1938) who painted the Island on several locations (above)   

Allee in Puttbus on Rügen  

My favorite Braumüller painting is this "Allee in Puttbus" painted in soft light in the tradition of "Berlin Impressionismus" and in my humble opinion matching the examples of the Grand Avenues and Tiergarten in Berlin depicted by Liebermann, Ury and Hübner. 

The painter Braumüller in auctions is both mentioned as Philipp Br. or George Br. Sometimes these names are combined indicating he is not that well known today. 

"Runkel and der Lahn"

A family chronicle stating he was born the son of an army general but a disability kept him from a military career. Instead he started his career as gardener in Breslau, some 100 miles to the West from Katowice, then moved to the centre of Germany to study in Kassel Art Academy, and also in the “Kunstschule” in Weimar. He also studied in the painting school of Friedrich Fehr (1862-1927) in Munich and with printmaker Ernst Neumann (1871-1954). He created posters ("Plakatkünstler") with woodblocks and lithography. 

He was wel known for his woodblock portraits of contemporary Munich celebrities like Max Petzold(*), composer Max Reger (1873-1916), theatre director and playwright Otto Falckenberg (1873-1947) and poet Martin Greif (1839-1911). But I was only able to find Falckenbergs (below)

He was a member of the “Graphischen Vereinigung Münchener Künstler”. and exhibited, like and possibly with his wife Margarethe, in the Glaspalast in Munich 1900-1906, in Düsseldorf 1907 and in Wiesbaden 1909.

Painting by Georg Braumuller and photograph of Berlins "Ballon Platz"  

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(*) Petzold, Max (1852-1896), the son of famous international and royal (imperial) landscape architect Eduard Petzold (1815-1891) became like his father a German gardener, garden architect and designer. He was also a painter like Braumüller (below), maybe Braumüller taught his former colleague. 

Petzold worked for some time (1880) with Elvaston Nurseries (above Elvaston Castle and Gardens) near Derby in England. Maybe Braumuller visited his friend  explaining his interest and painting of British historic steam-engine “the Rocket”. Petzold later (1882-1883) crossed the Atlantic and worked in the Central Cemetery* in Cincinnati, Ohio. He then moved to Brasil.
*Probably: Spring Grove Cemetery and arboretum which was designed combining British   landscape design with Paris Père Lachaise cemetery lay-out, by garden architect Adolph Strauch a colleague of his father Eduard. The Braumuller, Petzold and Strauch families originated roughly  from the same region and maybe are a clue and indication for these contacts and ties decades later.  

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

Please send any pictures of other paintings or portraits by Georg Braumuller. 

Martha Cunz: the Dutch Connection (I)

Martha Cunz 

(St.Gallen-Switserland, 1876-1961)

Swiss painter and pioneer woodblock printmaker

This blog is not intended to high-light the already famous and well researched printmaking artists: Martha Cunz is such an artist. There are better and reliable sites to inform you about Martha Cunz who studied with Ernst Neumann in Munich Art Academy. What is more important and interesting she is among the very first artists to try at color woodblock printmaking in the beginning of the 20th century. 

Her earliest prints, after initially trying at lithography, are dated as early as 1901. Of this "Birken" lithography a single copy of a woodblock print is known. By 1905 she was able to show, in the annual Glass Palace Exhibition in Munich truly great prints in the Japanese way created in the two years before. In contrast to her many later printmaking colleagues, like Carl Thiemann, 5 years her younger and inspired by her printmaking, Walter Klemm and the Neumann brothers Ernst and Hans, she eventually became obscured but since long has been rediscovered and rehabilitated. 

"Abend" (night in in St. Gallen) and "Frühling" (Spring) the two prints shown in the 1905 exhibition were created in 1903/04. 1904 was the year Emil Orlik who taught Klemm and Thiemann, was appointed professor in Berlin. She experimented and printed the black key block on the back of the paper to soften its tone. 

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The reason for this posting is recently finding in a junkshop this mystery print without a signature or monogram. The preliminary outcome of my research I share today. 

After some puzzling it became clear it shows the harbor of the fishing village of Harderwijk with characteristic herring fishing boats (type: botter), a sailing freighter (type: skutsje or tjalk), the fish-hall were the catch was sold and  auctioned, some houses and, vaguely, the windmill named "de Hoop". 

The way the windmill is depicted is peculiar, in a light relief, created with two different shades of brown. After removing the mat (passe-partout) it is clear the darkest brown color block had probably shifted (a registering fault ?) from the left and lower margins. The framer neatly disguised and hid this "problem" under the mat.   

The Harderwijk Mill, de Hoop (Hope) originally was build in 18th century but the wooden supra structure burned to the brick build mill-base after being struck by lightning in 1909. Classic windmills often were (and are) rebuild and recycled, they had a tendency to burn of friction or strike of lighting. It was rebuild in 1911 (and it burned again in 1969 and again was rebuild). 

Martha Cunz visited the Netherlands, in 1904 and again in 1910. During her first visit and stay several of her sketches later were used as designs for prints of which two are windmills (dated 1905 and 1907)

And from this print, a view on Volendam harbor, another of Hollands "Zuiderzee" fishing villages, the sketch also survived. Her painting in oil of Volendam shows her painting skills probably meeting with the other artists staying in the artist Hotel Spaander in Volendam. From 1931 Martha Cunz turned away from printmaking to paint the rest of her long life in het studio in St.Gallen.

And here are some more of her Dutch prints: "Night in Volendam", with similar great "Japanese blues" as used in the St. Gallen print.  

And "Mondschein",  that I think could very well be a moonlit Dutch farm.

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Carl Thiemann, in 1905 finishing his studies in Prag, also visited the Netherlands, somewhere between 1908-10, and it is said, although the two artist probably never met, he was not only impressed and inspired by Martha Cunz' printing technique, but most of all her birches, 

and Dutch windmill prints,

but also by her Dutch fishing boats. In this perticular boat print (Venice 1910) Thiemann uses the same technique of rendering the reflection of the boat in the water, the sails, and also uses similar browns as in the Harderwijk print.  Later Thiemann turned to a lighter color pallet. Assuming "Harderwijk" is also 1910'ish I have no clue about any Dutch printmaker who could achieve such a result in these early years of printmaking, simply because there weren't any around or even born yet.      

Like Harderwijk, Spakenburg-Bunschoten, Marken, Enkhuizen and the Frisian cities of Stavoren and Hindeloopen (where I've found this print) these villages and cities had traditional herring fleets, that is, before the final closing of the Afsluitdijk, a masterpiece of Dutch engineering, in 1932 turning the Zuiderzee into Lake IJsselmeer blocking the herring, creating safety for millions but ending traditional fishery. 

The importance and influence of Martha Cunz on all later Modern Printmakers, her achievement to create prints like these early examples in such a short time of trial, error and effort (in 1904 !) and probably without direct guidance from Emil Orlik, cannot be emphasized enough I believe. 

Which brings me to my next posting and very much related puzzle and problem.

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.  

www.galeriesouris.nl

Karl Schmoll von Eisenwerth

Karl Schmoll von Eisenwerth

1879 Vienna– 1948 Bad Gastein

Austrian-German Jugendstill, Arts and Crafts designer, painter, poster designer, ex-libris maker and graphic artist.

Karl Schmoll von Eisenwert was an influential Jugenstil artist and I wonder why so few examples of his art are to be discovered on the Internet. Even the Wikipedia entry is very basic. There are just a few examples, like this 1902 "Im Winde" that is as iconic for the München School of Art and Jugenstil as his Vienna colleague Max Kurzweil’s (1867-1916) 1904 “der Polster” (below) was for the Austrian counterpart the Seccesion and Wiener Werkstatt.  But luckily I’ve found some more examples of Schmoll’s work in books and old catalogues.

The son of an engineer, he visited Münchens Akademie für Bildende Künste in 1899-1901 and shortly after became a teacher for the graphic arts and was appointed professor in what became known as Arts and Crafts and Applied Art in Stuttgart in 1907. While in München he was accompanied by Martha Wenzel, Martha Kunz, Ernst Neumann (see before post).

I discovered Schmoll embrased early photography and made it to use with different technigues, like sketching aid and also in designing etchings, lithographs and woodblock prints. He is one of the few artists experimenting with algraphy, producing etchings using alluminium plates which gives the very “soft” appearance of his much of his work. 

Often the same designs can be found in paint, pastel, etching and woodblockprint.

His fame was made when this iconic painting "der Spaziergang" (the Walk) which also exists in print (and was on Ebay recently) was bought by a rich industrial in 1907 and donated to the newly build Kunsthalle. It is said to represent the three stages of life, youth, middle age and old age. But also a political statement and prophetic view on Germany, the lady in white representing the new Germany arising. It was made after a 1904 photograph of his aunt Maria leading the way, his wife Sophie in the white dress and brother Willy Reynier closing.

Above "am Brunnen" (at the Well) and I really would like to discover the color version of similar 1905 designs Waldritt (Forest ride) and das Weisse Kleid (The White Dress) prints. 

They all have, one more than the other, the bewildering birds-eye view perspective. Where the onlooker is placed "on a branch" looking both down and to the horizon. I think this “trick”, which makes it necessary to change the angle of view to fathom the complexity of the composition is of Japanese origin. It was lend by John Edgar Platt (1886-1967) using it reversely, looking up (left). 

The earliest and by far the strongest is possibly by knighted Sir Lawrence Adema-Tadema (1836-1912), British and Frisian. He was born not 20 miles from where I live in nearby Dronrijp (right) I am proud to say.

Views from the balcony of a theater, concert hall or circus are a more human  position and location for applying this view. Edgar Degas (1834-1917 knew. But the most spectacular, impossible and dramatic example I know is by Salvador Dali (1904-1989) using the viewpoint of the Father overlooking his creation and the misery put on his Son in St. John of the Cross, created in 1951.

Felix Valloton (1865-1925) probably was the earliest painter-printmaker to use it in “The red ball” and even overseas, in 1912, printmaker Mabel Royds (1874-1941) saw the possibilities placing herself among the (also chestnut) branches overlooking "the Court'.

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly and non commercial use only.