Alfred Black

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfred Black

Alfred Schwarz (born May 27, 1867 in Berlin ; † November 17, 1951 in Saulgau ) was a German painter . He was best known and appreciated as a portraitist of the Wilhelmine society .

Life

Alfred Schwarz in his studio, 1906. Photo by R. Siegert.

Alfred Schwarz only attended the Berlin Art Academy for a short time and then trained as a painter largely self-taught . At first he was interested in decorative painting of Berlin monumental buildings and portraits of children. Inspired by a joint study trip with the landscape painter Paul Flickel , numerous atmospheric, sometimes genre-like forest and open-air scenes were created from 1894 onwards . In his painting style, he was initially influenced by impressionism .

On several study trips that took him to Florence and Venice , however, he increasingly dealt with the Old Masters and from then on deliberately tried to stick to the classic painting style and traditional ideal of beauty . As a result, he alienated himself more and more from Impressionism and rejected the views of the Munich School of Painting , which he accused of striving primarily for ostensible color effects, garish poster art and in portrait painting too little to capture the personality of the person depicted.

Alfred Schwarz experienced his breakthrough as a portraitist at a special exhibition of his works during the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1904. His portraits of Countess Zeppelin , Countesses Valerie and Ilsa von Wedel , Lady Oppenheimer, Frau Herz-Mills, May Mayer and Agathe Malachow, which were shown there, are considered to be the main works of the painter and standard works of portrait art. The artist honored with the award of the gold medal was henceforth one of the busiest painters of his time. Especially the ladies of Berlin society, who at the turn of the century had shed their old Prussian simplicity and more and more represented the sophisticated glamor of the new era, found in black a painter who was able to create the finest modulations of colors, shapes and light. and to depict shadow plays in a painterly way. Especially the radiant luminosity of the eyes, the luminous freshness of the flesh and the characteristic hands and fabrics drawn from nature, as well as his ability to depict props, draperies and robes in all their splendor without letting the sitter take a back seat, were praised in his portraits.

In 1908 the portraits of Countess von Nostitz , Countess von Bylandt , Frau von der Goltz , Countess Henckel von Donnersmarck , the Romanian Princess Nadia Stirbey and the painting Lady in Black Velvet attracted a lot of attention.

Alfred Schwarz was one of the preferred painters of Wilhelm II and his family. His portrait of the emperor on Wilhelmshöhe in naval uniform , painted in 1906, resulted in a whole series of commissions, such as the portraits of Wilhelm in the uniforms of the guard cuirassiers , the Spanish Numancia dragoons , in the uniform of the Guard du Corps , in large general's uniform, in regalia an Oxford -Doktors and the Johanniter - Gala . On behalf of the emperor, he painted for the Royal Library Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy as a collector and his son Ernst as the donor of a historical manuscript collection. Schwarz also received commissions from abroad, for example for portraits of the kings of England , Romania , Bulgaria and Albania .

Alfred Schwarz: Kaiser Wilhelm II in the uniform of the 1st Guards Regiment on foot, 1929, Doorn House

Even after the end of the First World War, Schwarz painted numerous portraits for the emperor living in exile , which are now in the Doorn house .

During the Second World War , the old artist's house at Viktoria-Luise-Platz 11 was destroyed. Alfred Schwarz came to Saulgau as an evacuate , where he died.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Black, Alfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 17th November 1951
Place of death Saulgau