Franz Grassel (1861-1948): Standing Male Nude - Rear View (circa 1883)

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This afternoon I managed to add a beautifully executed male nude by the German artist Franz Grassel (1861-1948) to my collection. It is executed in charcoal with white highlights and shows a finely muscled male nude from behind. Grassel is a well known genre painter who was active during the last half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He worked in a loose academic style and from what I gather had a proclivity for ducks. They appear in almost all of his paintings. He grew up on a mill at Obersasbach and one would guess that is where he acquired his fondness for the beautiful beasts. From 1878 to 1884 he studied at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe under Conrad Hope. In 1885 he became a teacher at the high school at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Strasbourg. From 1886 to 1890 he continued to make study trips to the Art Academy in Munich where he studied with Wilhelm von Lindenschmit (The Younger)(1829-1895). Grassel specialized in genre paintings and had a fondness for farm poultry. In 1900 he became the honorary chairman of the Brucker Artists Association and in 1911 he was appointed as a Royal Academy Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. During his lifetime he took Gold and Silver Medals for his works. His works are in the collections of many museums to include Berlin, Freiberg, Munich, the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Nuremberg and collections here in the United States.

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Title: Standing Male Nude (Rear View)

Artist: Franz Grassel (1861-1948)

Materials: Charcoal on Paper with white chalk highlights

Dated: Signed and dated "83"

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Here are a few examples of his other works:

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