Bruno of choice

Bruno von Wahl (born July 18, 1868 in Munich , † 1952 in Bad Tölz ) was a German painter, illustrator and specialist drawing teacher.

family

Bruno von Wahl came from the widespread German-Baltic aristocratic family Wahl , which was based in Estonia . Landowners, officers in German and Russian services, but also numerous artists emerged from it. Alexander (Alexej) von Wahl , Bruno's father, grew up at the family's ancestral home, Assick in Estonia, in 1839, studied sculpture at the Academy in Saint Petersburg and in 1861 went to Munich to continue his studies. He switched to painting and died in Munich in 1903. He was married to Pauline, nee Baroness von Hoyningen-Huene , born in Reval , Estonia. Bruno von Wahl grew up with four siblings on Georgenstrasse in Munich . The younger sister Pauline married the painter Robert Franz Curry (1872-1931) from Boston in 1895 , the sister Adele married his brother in 1899, the mathematician and physicist Charles Curry (1868-1935). The third sister, Helene, had been married to the general manager of Allianz insurance Gustav Knote since 1903 .

Life

From 1878 Bruno von Wahl attended the Maximiliansgymnasium in Munich. The school's register noted that he left school on July 16, 1881, “because his parents had moved to Russia”, but this was not the case: he transferred to the Realgymnasium in Freising . In preparation for studying at the art academy, he first enrolled at the Munich School of Applied Arts, where he took the subjects of arts and crafts drawing with Leopold Gmelin (1847-1916) and glass painting with Robert Ulke (1831-1910). On April 29, 1889, he transferred to Rudolf Seitz's composition class at the art academy . In 1899 he went on a study trip to Italy.

In 1901 he married Marie Kathleen Miller (* 1870 in Murree , British North India), the daughter of a civil judge; In 1902 the son Wilhelm Robert Alexander was born. The marriage ended in divorce in 1915. In his second marriage von Wahl married Louise von Eschwege, née Thomas.

activity

Bruno von Wahl worked in Munich as a specialist teacher for free-hand drawing and technical drawing at the vocational training school , and since 1906 at the municipal trade school . In 1929 he was retired as a commercial student adviser and moved to Bad Tölz in Upper Bavaria .

In addition to teaching, Bruno von Wahl developed designs for the arts and crafts and occasionally drew illustrations, for example around 1895 for poems by his sister Adele, which have remained in family ownership. As a freelancer, he mainly created large-format, finely divided flower still lifes, which suggest a discussion of Dutch flower painting of the 17th century, but occasionally also include landscape details. Representations of Circassians or Cossack riders , which have also survived in the family, were probably early works. They were created clearly under the influence of the father's painting, but by no means achieve their quality.

Selection of works

• 72 panels with craft drafts in the magazine Auf! ; 12 booklets; Verlag der Vereinigte Kunstanstalten München 1901–1902.
• 10 illustrations to poems by Adele von Wahl, one dated 1895 (family manuscript).
• 2 still lifes with flowers and a Cossack rider (Circassian) with a flag next to his horse : family property.

literature

• Adolf Bothe (Ed.): Address book of contemporary visual artists , born in 1901.
• Dressler's art manual 1930.
• Hans Ries: Illustration and illustrators of books for children and young people in German-speaking countries 1871–1914 , Osnabrück 1992.
• Erna von Harpe, Dieter von Wahl: Living in Livonia. The family of Wahl 1795-1993 . Published on behalf of the Familienverband von Wahl eV, Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn 1995 (Fig.).
• Claudia Schmalhofer: The Kgl. Kunstgewerbeschule Munich (1868–1918). Your influence on the training of drawing teachers . Utz, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-8316-0542-2 , p. 372 No. 4908.
• Siegfried Weiß : Art career aspiration. Painter, graphic artist, sculptor. Former students of the Maximiliansgymnasium in Munich from 1849 to 1918 . Allitera Verlag, Munich 2012, pp. 526-530 (fig.).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ To be mentioned are Bruno's cousin, the officer and landscape painter Ernest von Wahl (1878–1949) and his daughter, the set designer and landscape painter Olga von Wahl-Maydell (1914–1969), the painter and graphic artist Nora von Wahl (1904–1991 ), the painter Günther von Wahl (1899–1979), the painter Martha von Wahl (1867–1952) and the painter and draftsman Anna von Wahl , who came from a different line of the family, worked in Munich, Berlin and most recently in Fürstenfeldbruck ( 1861-1938).
2. ↑ Maximiliansgymnasium Munich, archive, register and annual reports 1878/79 to 1880/81.
3. ↑ arts and crafts teacher; Professor at the Munich School of Applied Arts; Editor of the magazine for arts in crafts ; Grandson of the chemist of the same name Leopold Gmelin (1788–1853); see: Erich Pietsch: Gmelin, Leopold , in: Neue Deutsche Biographie , Vol. 6, Berlin 1964, pp. 480–481.
4. ^ Claudia Schmalhofer: The Kgl. Kunstgewerbeschule Munich (1868–1918). Your influence on the training of drawing teachers . Utz, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-8316-0542-2 , p. 372 No. 4908.
5. ↑ matriculation 1884-1920, 00550 Bruno of choice ; according to the inscription form in the registration documents: WS 1888/89, WS 89/90, SS 90, WS 90/91, SS 91, WS 91/92.
6. ↑ According to the registration records of Bruno von Wahl in the Munich City Archives, the divorced wife and son had lived in Switzerland since 1902 and later emigrated to the USA.
7. ↑ First married to the meadow construction teacher Wilhelm von Eschwege (1864–1920), their son from this marriage, Rudolf von Eschwege , fell as a fighter pilot in the First World War.
8. ^ Munich, city archives, registration documents (PMB): Bruno von Wahl , created March 27, 1913.