The Artist: Hans-Richard von Volkmann (1860-1927)
The last few weeks have been very productive in terms of academic nude works that I have found and purchased on the German eBay site and which are now headed into my collection. This intaglio print by the German Artist Hans-Richard von Volkmann (1860-1927), although unsigned, titled "Nackter Knabe mit Stier," was found several days ago and bought today. Here is the graphic work in question:
Here is some biographic information from the net:
"Hans Richard von Volkmann (19 May 1860, Halle - 29 April 1927, Halle) was a German illustrator and landscape painter, associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule. His father, Richard von Volkmann, was a well known surgeon and occasional author. By the age of fourteen, he was already roaming the areas around Halle with a pencil and paint box. Many of his early watercolors are still in the possession of the Halle state archives.
After completing his primary education, he enrolled at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied from 1880 to 1888. His primary instructors there were Hugo Crola, Heinrich Lauenstein, Johann Peter Theodor Janssen and Eduard von Gebhardt. During this time, he became a member of the progressive artists' association, Malkasten. From 1888 to 1892, he was in Karlsruhe, as master student of the landscape painter, Gustav Schönleber, who would be his primary influence. His first sale was in 1890, to a friend of his father's, Dr. Eduard Hertzberg.
He made extensive painting excursions throughout Central and Southern Germany. In 1893, he paid a visit to the Riviera. Despite these travels, Halle would be his artistic home base for the rest of his life. Later, he joined the Deutscher Künstlerbund and participated in their first exhibit in 1904, at Munich's Staatliche Antikensammlungen.[1]
His second home was the artists' colony in Willingshausen. He first went there in 1883 and, for the next twenty-five years, was there every summer.[2] From 1907 to 1910, he lived there with his wife and children. He would do so again from 1924 to 1926.
He died in his home town, three days after returning from a trip. In 1928, the city of Halle presented a major retrospective of his work. In addition to his relatively simple landscapes, he also illustrated sixty-two children's books; some of them written by his father under the pen name "Richard Leander."
The Düsseldorf school of painting is a term referring to a group of painters who taught or studied at the Dusseldorf Academy (now the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf or Düsseldorf State Art Academy) during the 1830s and 1840s, when the Academy was directed by the painter Wilhelm von Schadow.[1]
The work of the Düsseldorf School is characterized by finely detailed yet fanciful landscapes, often with religious or allegorical stories set in the landscapes. Major members of the Düsseldorf School advocated plain air painting", and tended to use a pallette with relatively subdued and even colors. The Düsseldorf School derived from and was a part of the German Romantic Movement. Prominent members of the Düsselorf School included von Schadow, Karl Friedrich Lessing, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Andreas Achenbach, Hans Fredrik Gude, Adolph Tidemand, Oswald Achenbach, and Adolf Schrödter.
The Düsseldorf School had a significant influence on the Hudson River School in the United States, and many prominent Americans trained at the Düsseldorf Academy and show the influence of the Düsseldorf School, including George Caleb Bingham, David Edward Cronin, Eastman Johnson, Worthington Whittredge, Richard Caton Woodville, William Stanley Haseltine, James McDougal Hart, Helen Searle, and William Morris Hunt, as well as German émigré Emanuel Leutze. Albert Bierstadt applied but was not accepted. His American friend Worthington Whittredge became his teacher while attending Düsseldorf."
Here's some background information regarding the Kunstdruckerei Künstlerbund Karlsruhe (KKK) (Art Print Artists Association Karlsruhe (KKK), the likely source of the print:
The founding of a separate printing shop for the Karlsruhe Artists' Association, which was founded on April 25, 1896, was initiated by the two Academy professors and association members Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth and Carlos Grethe. The trained lithographer Carl Langhein, who had been Kalckreuth’s assistant since 1895 and head of the academy’s lithography class set up in the same year, was entrusted with managing the art print shop, which opened in May 1897 as the Langhein lithography print shop for the Karlsruhe Artists’ Association at 35 Akademiestraße and which formerly the Hasperschen Hofbuchdruckerei of Josef Lang at Kaiserstraße 235. With the sale of the latter to the G. Braunsche Hofbuchdruckerei in the same year, the art print shop was also transferred to the Braunsche company. Langhein became manager of the Braun subsidiary, which moved to Erbprinzenstraße 10 in 1898, was converted into a limited liability company in 1901 and from this point on officially traded as the art print shop Künstlerbund Karlsruhe (KKK). In addition to the production of artistic color lithographs by the members of the association, the commercial use of lithographic technology for printed matter of all kinds for industry and trade was in the foreground right from the start. Langhein succeeded in hiring a few wholesalers (including Heinrich Schlinck, Palmin, in Mannheim; Julius Baader, Baaders Brezeln, in Freiburg i. Br.; Mayer & Grammelspacher, Diana air guns, Eureka weapons, in Rastatt) for the creative implementation of Win promotional printed matter through the KKK. In 1901, a contract was signed with the two Leipzig publishers B. G. Teubner and R. Voigtländer for the publication and sale of the artistic quick press prints, while the KKK continued to sell the exclusive hand-signed hand press prints. The connection with Leipzig opened up new exhibition, publication and sales opportunities for the members of the Karlsruhe Artists' Association, especially in the context of the art education movement of the time. According to the address book, the KKK also owned a copper printing shop from 1904, which produced both artist etchings and works for large companies such as the Bremen shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd. Standardized bulk goods included the production of stamps for the Grand Duchy of Baden, printed folding boxes and cigarette packaging (from 1921 the KKK had its own folding box department), area maps and cadastral plans. In 1916 the KKK became the owner of the neighboring building at Erbprinzenstraße 8. In 1921 it opened a shop for the art publishing department at Erbprinzenstraße 10. In 1923 the art print shop was converted into a public limited company. The following year, she took over the Carl Metzeroth copper engraving institute in Hildburghausen, which expanded production to include maps from leading German hiking clubs. In 1930 the establishment and expansion of a photo and reproduction department began. From the 1930s, the production of atlases was added, including the Heimatatlas Südwestmark Baden (1934) and people, home and the world. Atlas for elementary school (1941). At the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the Army Planning Department and the Main War Map Office used the company's cartographic experience. After the death of Werner Knittel in 1940, the junior boss of the KKK, his brother Eberhard Knittel, who was responsible for the G. Braun company at Karl-Friedrich-Strasse 16, also took over the management of the KKK. In 1950 the company was expanded to include Erbprinzenstraße 6 and was converted into a GmbH. In 1957/58 the business complex was expanded to include Erbprinzenstraße 4 and 12. Advertising, packaging and cartography continued to be the three focal points of the large graphic company. In the early 1980s, operations were reduced to Erbprinzenstraße 4 before being closed in 1984."
Here are just a few examples of his large body of works:
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