Georg Waltenberger

Georg Waltenberger (born August 14, 1865 in Blieskastel , † February 5, 1961 in Berchtesgaden ) was a German painter. His focus was on portrait and history painting .

Life

Georg Waltenberger's father was Anton Waltenberger (1840–1902), tax adviser, cartographer and author of several groundbreaking works on the development of the northern Alps; The Waltenberger House was named after him. After attending a secondary school, Georg Waltenberger studied with Carl Theodor von Piloty , Nikolaus Gysis and Wilhelm von Lindenschmit at the Art Academy in Munich . In the composing class of the history painter Lindenschmit he met the Tyrolean painter Albin Egger-Lienz , with whom he had a close friendship. His daughter Virginie was also active as a painter, her focus being on the depiction of flowers. Waltenberger spent a large part of his life in Salzberg near Berchtesgaden, where he owned a house.

plant

Reichstag session 1905 (painting by Georg Waltenberger)

Waltenberger sent the exhibitions in the Munich Glass Palace and other international art exhibitions with portraits and representations rich in figures. His first major work was the three-part colossal painting End of the World , which earned him wide attention and for which he was awarded the Small Golden Medal in Dresden in 1897 . Another decisive step in his artistic career was taken with the large-format picture The Chancellor speaks , which Bernhard von Bülow shows in front of the Reichstag . Together u. a. with Angelo Jank , Adolf Münzer and Walter Püttner he painted the jury court room in the Munich Palace of Justice with the subject of the fall of the damned . The room is now paneled with wood, it is unknown whether the work underneath has been preserved. After all, it was the laying of the foundation stone for the new German Museum in Munich by Kaiser Wilhelm II that gave the artist the opportunity to create another highly regarded historical painting.

In addition to history painting, Waltenberger created over 600 portraits, including those of important personalities of his time in Germany and other European countries. These include portraits of members of the Wittelsbach family as well as portraits of researchers and inventors such as Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and Rudolf Diesel .

Awards

• Honorary citizenship of his place of birth Blieskastel.
• Honorary citizenship of his adopted home Berchtesgaden, awarded on November 4, 1947 for services as an important artist and the decoration of the Kursaal, built in 1930.

literature

• A. Helm: The Berchtesgadener Land through the ages. Part 3, Berchtesgaden 1929. (Reprint: Verlag Berchtesgadener Anzeiger, 1974, p. 380)
• Hellmut Schöner (ed.): The Berchtesgadener Land through the ages. Supplementary volume I, Berchtesgadener Anzeiger publishing house, 1982, p. 538.
• Dieter Meister: The unrest spirit on the mountain. In: Berchtesgadener Anzeiger . Online edition no longer available, accessed on July 5, 2009.
• JM Palle: The Albin Egger Lienz portrait by Georg Waltenberger. In: Der Schlern - monthly magazine for South Tyrolean regional studies. 72nd year, May 1998, pp. 267-276.
• JM Vilanek: The German Reichstag at the turn of the century by Georg Waltenberger (1865–1961), On the history of a history picture in the Presidium of the German Bundestag in Bonn.
• I. Pflaumann: The painter Georg Waltenberger (1865–1961), search for lost works by this Munich artist. In: Zeitschrift Schönere Heimat. H. 4, 1996, of the Bavarian State Association for Home Care eV Munich.
• Georg Waltenberger . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 35 : Libra-Wilhelmson . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1942, p. 110 .
• Georg Waltenberger . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 6 , supplements H-Z . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1962, p. 467 .