August Becker (painter)
August Becker (born January 27, 1821 in Darmstadt , † December 19, 1887 in Düsseldorf ) was a German landscape painter from the Düsseldorf School .
Live and act
Beginnings
August Becker began his painting studies in 1837 with the Darmstadt court and theater painter Johann Heinrich Schilbach . His first study trip took him to Lichtenberg , Rüdesheim and the Nahe valley . He also painted numerous landscapes in the Darmstadt area, e.g. B. in the Odenwald .
For the year 1840 he is tangible as a student in Johann Wilhelm Schirmer's landscape class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy .
He also spent the winter of 1841/1842 in Düsseldorf , which compared to Darmstadt offered a larger market for art and, thanks to the Düsseldorf School of Painting, took on the status of an international art center. Becker was soon able to build a stable existence by selling his paintings.
In 1844 Becker took a trip to Norway . He then painted numerous pictures of Norwegian fjord landscapes .
Becker and the British royal family
In 1854, at the time of the beginning naturalism , August Becker stayed in London for several weeks to study and visit the museums there. August Becker's brother Ernst had entered the British royal service in 1851 as a librarian and tutor . So there was a meeting with Prince Albert , who a little later bought Becker's painting The Jungfrau Massif for 80 pounds sterling and gave it to Queen Victoria for Christmas.
Since then, Becker has enjoyed continuous esteem at the English court. In the years to come, Queen Victoria acquired more paintings. In 1864 Becker toured Scotland at the invitation of the Queen , and in 1869 he visited the Queen at her country estate in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight .
Painting style and oeuvre
August Becker was strongly influenced by the art of the first half of the 19th century in his painting style and working method. He was not an impressionist who did a sketchy oil painting on site . His sketchbooks show how the artist first recorded the atmospheric conditions and changing lighting conditions and thus prepared pictures that he later meticulously finished.
His oeuvre includes around 360 paintings. About eighty paintings and oil sketches by August Becker alone are said to have been sold to England.
Exhibitions
- August Becker (1821-1887). A Darmstadt landscape painter on the road in Europe . Art Archive Darmstadt, September 8th to October 27th, 2002.
literature
- Hermann Board : Becker, August . In: Ulrich Thieme , Felix Becker (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. tape 3 : Bassano – Bickham . Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1909, p. 144 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
- Lotte Hoffmann-Kuhnt (Ed.): August Becker (1821–1887). The life of a landscape painter. Travel reports and letters . Schwaig, 2001, ISBN 3-00-006972-0 .
- Raimond Selke: August Becker (1821–1887): The Darmstadt landscape painter from the Düsseldorf school. Biography and catalog of works . (= Dissertation Univ. Regensburg 2004) Görres, Koblenz 2005, ISBN 3-935690-39-8 .
- Eva Haberkorn: Extraordinary careers. The Becker family archive in the Hessian State Archives in Darmstadt . In: archive news from hessen , 15/1, 2015, p. 7 ff.
Web links
- Literature by and about August Becker in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about August Becker in the German Digital Library
- August Becker in the Royal Collection
- August Becker in the Van Ham artist database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eva Haberkorn, Extraordinary Careers, The Becker Family Archives in the Hessian State Archives in Darmstadt, archive news from hessen, 15/1, 2015, p. 9
- ^ Rudolf Theilmann : The student lists of the landscape classes from Schirmer to Dücker . In: Wend von Kalnein : The Düsseldorf School of Painting . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979, ISBN 3-8053-0409-9 , p. 144
- ↑ Catalog of the Prince Albrecht Society 2003 to: August Becker and the English royal family, page 16 ff ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Catalog of the Prinz Albrecht Gesellschaft 2003 to: August Becker, Malweise, page 15/16 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Becker, August |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German landscape painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 27, 1821 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Darmstadt |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 19, 1887 |
| Place of death | Dusseldorf |