Friedrich Klein-Chevalier

Friedrich Klein-Chevalier (born June 18, 1861 in Düsseldorf , † March 14, 1938 in Wiesbaden ) was a German history and portrait painter from the Düsseldorf School .

Life

After completing military training, Klein-Chevalier studied from 1884 to 1886 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under the history painter Peter Janssen the Elder. Ä. as well as the architect and craftsman Adolf Schill , who encouraged his talent for monumental and decorative tasks. Early recognition earned him commissions for wall and panel paintings, theater curtains, allegories and history paintings. In 1892 he took part in a competition to paint the council chamber in Düsseldorf City Hall , in which he had submitted a draft for a monumental mural entitled Jan Wellem, appraised plans for the new town . His design was honored with the second prize. Between 1894 and 1899 he was allowed to realize it on one of the long walls of the hall. A stay in Rome in 1893/94 and the viewing of works of art by Raphael and Michelangelo became a key experience for him. It was under this impression that he created the work Death of Agrippina, mother of Nero . A trip to New York in 1897 established his fame as a portraitist, which continued in Germany with commissions from the nobility and the upper classes.

After his marriage to the industrialist daughter Else Levinstein (1879–1939), he moved to Berlin in 1901 . The couple had three children. Klein-Chevalier, who was awarded the title of professor, increasingly occupied himself with open-air painting , including in seaside resorts on the North and Baltic Seas and during his stays in Italy. In 1907 the celebrated painter prince acquired the Villa Medici of Fiesole near Florence . The collapse of the monarchy at the end of the First World War meant an economic decline for Klein-Chevalier as well. From 1920 he lived in Goslar , where he received his last major order for the city's millennium in 1923, and on Kurfürstendamm 4 in Berlin. After 1922 he moved back to Florence, where he almost exclusively painted monumental flower pictures. In 1935 he returned to Germany, where he died in Wiesbaden in 1938.

His wife, who came from a Jewish family, died in 1939 shortly before she was to be deported in the course of the Nazi persecution of Jews . Little Chevalier's grandson was the actor and voice actor Michael Chevalier .

Works (selection)

Photo of the mural Jan Wellem examines plans for palace construction for the new town

• Curtain of the Krefeld city theater
• The inauguration of the Niederwald monument , mural in the Mönchengladbach town hall hall
• Curtain of the Essen city theater
• Decorations and murals in the Hotel zum Löwen, Düsseldorf
• Jan Wellem examines plans for the construction of a palace in Neustadt , mural for the council chamber in Düsseldorf City Hall , designed in 1892, executed between 1894 and 1899, destroyed by an air raid in World War II
• Painting of the meeting room in the Oberbergamt Halle
• The return of the first elector to Kassel in November 1813 , 1893–1897
• Death of Agrippina, Nero's mother , created in Rome in 1893/1894
• Dome and glass paintings for the Berlin trade exhibition in 1896
• Dawn in the gaming room in Ostend
• Visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II. With Krupp in the city council of Essen , 1898, mural in the council chamber of Essen
• Lady in the Snow , around 1898
• Draft for the decoration of the ballroom in Altona town hall , 1899
• Emil von Behring , portrait, 1903.
• Wilhelm II. Portrait of the emperor in the auditorium of the Handelshochschule Berlin , 1908
• Sea showers. Oil painting, 1913.

literature

• Klein-Chevalier, F .. In: Friedrich von Boetticher: Painter works of the 19th century. Contribution to art history. Volume 1/2, sheets 31–61: Heideck – Mayer, Louis. Ms. v. Boetticher's Verlag, Dresden 1895, p. 693 ( archive.org ).
• Heinrich Rottenburg: F. Klein-Chevalier. In: The Art of Our Time. A chronicle of modern art life. 1898, 1, pp. 92-94 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Friedrich Schaarschmidt : History of Düsseldorf art, especially in the XIX. Century. Art Association for the Rhineland and Westphalia, Düsseldorf 1902, pp. 324, 359, 362 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Max Oeser: Friedrich Klein-Chevalier and his new art. Heinrich von Keller publishing house, Frankfurt 1911.
• Siegfried Gehrecke, Ursula Gehrecke: Friedrich Klein-Chevalier 1861–1938. An artist's life at the turn of the century. Goltze Verlag, Göttingen 1988, ISBN 3-88452-831-9 .
• Klein-Chevalier, Friedrich . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 20 : Kaufmann – Knilling . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1927, p. 449-450 .
• Klein-Chevalier, Friedrich . In: General Artist Lexicon. Bio-bibliographical index A – Z. Volume 5: Hodunov – Laborier. KG Saur, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-598-23915-7 , p. 563.

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Klein-Chevalier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Klein-Chevalier, Friedrich. Short biography in the portal malerei19jh.museum-kassel.de
• Friedrich Klein-Chevalier. Auction results in the portal artnet.de

Individual evidence

1. ^ Benedikt Mauer, Elisabeth Scheeben: The painting school at home. Local art associations and the city of Düsseldorf as clients. In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , Volume 1, pp. 308 f., Figure 6.
2. ^ Friedrich Noack : The Germanness in Rome since the end of the Middle Ages. Volume 1. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1927, p. 604.
3. ↑ Biographical information in: Claims Resolution Tribunal: Transferred payment notification regarding the account of Prof. Friedrich Klein-Chevalier (Az. CV96-4849), PDF .
4. ↑ VI. Heimische Gemütlichkeit ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website in the portal kgi.ruhr-uni-bochum.de , accessed on March 15, 2015. 
5. ↑ Carsten Roth: Profession: 'Emperor' or 'Governing is also work'. Rule work and subject work in examples from the iconography of Wilhelm II. In: Klaus Türk (Hrsg.): Work and industry in the fine arts. Contributions to an interdisciplinary symposium . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-07139-3 , p. 81 ( books.google.de ).