Albert Lang (painter)

Albert Lang: Self-Portrait with a Cigarette , 1911

Albert Lang (born November 15, 1847 in Karlsruhe , † December 1, 1933 in Munich ) was a German painter and graphic artist .

Life

Lang was the son of the businessman Heinrich Lang and his wife Katharina Kaufmann. After finishing school, Lang began to study architecture in his hometown. He later switched to the same subject at the Berlin Building Academy , where he became a student of Heinrich Strack .

Albert Lang: Cypress grove , 1891

On a trip to Italy that Lang undertook in 1869/70 because of his poor health, he took a liking to painting. His friend, the painter Carl Schuch, encouraged him to do so and placed him as a student at Alexander Strähuber . Back from Italy, Lang settled in Munich and studied painting there. Lang was initially very much influenced by Hans Thoma and Wilhelm Leibl . Through Leibl, Lang not only came closer to the painting of Gustave Courbet and his environment, but he also joined the circle around his friend Leibl.

Lang interpreted the direction represented here very vehemently and throughout his life fought against the style that was represented by the history painter Karl Theodor von Piloty , among others . In 1873 Lang attended the academy in Karlsruhe for a few weeks , and in early 1874 he went on a study trip through Italy with Thoma. From March to May 1874 the two were in Rome , from where Thoma returned to Germany; Long stayed in Florence for 14 years .

In Florence, Lang made friends with the painter Hans von Marées and joined the group of artists that had formed around Marées. It included Peter Bruckmann , Conrad Fiedler , Adolf von Hildebrand and A. Hollaender . Karl von Pidoll and Arnold Böcklin were close to this group, but cannot be counted among them.

In 1881 Lang married Maria Francesca Ludovica Zampis in Florence. With her he had a son, the later painter Leonhard Lang (* 1878). In 1888 Lang returned to Germany and settled in Frankfurt am Main . Hans Thoma lived and worked there. Together they led u. a. made a fresco for the restaurant Zum Kaiser Karl , which was destroyed in the last war.

In 1897 Lang went to Munich, but soon got bigger and bigger problems because of his eye condition. His illness led to complete blindness after a few years. Albert Lang died on December 1, 1933 in Munich at the age of 86.

Works (selection)

Albert Lang: Alpine landscape

• The reveler
• Painter Heinrich
• Dirt road
• Loneliness (1879, Kunsthalle Mannheim )

literature

• Jan Lauts (Ed.): Hans Thoma and his circle. State Art Gallery, Stuttgart 1962.
• Michael Petzet : Wilhelm Leibl and his circle. Prestel, Munich 1974.
• Hans Wille:  Lang, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 528 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Albert Lang  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Albert Lang in the catalog of the German National Library