Gustavus Behne

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Gustavus Edward Augustus Behne , also Gustavus Adolphus Behne or Gustav Behné (born September 1, 1828 in Werningshausen , Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , † 1895 in Fürstenfeldbruck , Kingdom of Bavaria ), was a German-American portrait , history , landscape and still life painter of the Düsseldorf and Munich schools .

Life

Behne was the son of a doctor from Nordhausen , Johann Heinrich Behne (1799–1876) and his first wife Wilhelmina († 1854). His father had been trained as a doctor in Jena, Halle and Würzburg. As a follower of homeopathy of the doctor Samuel Hahnemann , he practiced his method in Reading , Pennsylvania , in the United States , to which he had emigrated with his family in 1840 and 1843 without the permission of the Prussian authorities.

In Philadelphia , Behne had probably already been a student of the portrait painter Thomas Sully before he studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from October 1848 . There he attended the 2nd class (Antikensaal and painting class) under Karl Ferdinand Sohn , then the painting class of Theodor Hildebrandt . When the authorities in Düsseldorf tried in July or August 1849 to draft Behne for Prussian military service, he refused on the grounds that he was a US citizen and left the Kingdom of Prussia after receiving information that he was from the police being sought. In 1850 he returned to the United States for some time. In September 1851 he traveled again to Europe, where he had stayed in Brussels for several months from November 1851 and from there, as a US citizen, sought entry to Prussia in order to continue his painting studies. The matter, which had been the subject of diplomatic correspondence between the Prussian Foreign Ministry in Berlin and the US Embassy there since October 1849, ended in June 1852 with Berlin insisting on Behne's Prussian citizenship and corresponding military service. Since Behne could not return to Prussian Düsseldorf without being subjected to military service, he enrolled on November 20, 1852 as "Gustav Behné" at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in the field of painting.

In 1856 Behne married Julia Mayer Keim (1829-1915) from Reading, daughter of the Democratic politician George May Keim and cousin of the Republican politician William High Keim . She was a woman interested in music, history, languages, and literature who had received higher education from Reading Academy and private tuition in Philadelphia. He moved with her to Texas in 1857 , where his wife's relatives lived. In 1861 they lived in Galveston , Texas. During this time he worked mainly as a portrait painter. For example, in 1861 he was commissioned by the state to portray the first president of the former Republic of Texas , Sam Houston . He also drew portraits for a local newspaper. He later portrayed the first governor of California , Peter Burnett . During the Civil War , Behne and his wife moved to Havana , Cuba to avoid the war.

After the war they went to Munich , where they stayed until 1874. Then they returned to Reading. Around 1876, during a stay in Bar Harbor , Maine , while working on a commission for a marine painting , Behne fell from a rock and sustained serious, permanent back injuries in this fall, which from then on significantly restricted his work as a painter. The couple then moved back to Germany, where they lived in Fürstenfeldbruck near Munich until Behne's death. Whether Behne is identical to Gustav Behn mentioned in the Thieme-Becker lexicon is sometimes suspected, but is uncertain.

literature

  • Gustavus Augustus Behné . In: Morton Luther Montgomery: Historical and biographical annals of Berks County . JH Beers & Co., Chicago 1909, Volume 1, pp. 712 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Pauline A. Pickney: Painting in Texas. The nineteenth century . University of Texas Press, Austin / Texas and London 1967, pp. 141 f.
  • Katharina Bott: German artists in America 1813–1913 . Publishing house and database for the humanities, Weimar 1996, ISBN 3-932124-03-0 , p. 10.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Letter from Alexander von Schleinitz to Edward A. Hannegan dated October 19, 1849. In: The Executive Documents Printed by Order of the Senate of the United States, First Session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1859-1860 . Washington, DC 1860, p. 20 ( Google Books )
  2. ^ Academy of Fine Arts Munich : Martikelbuch , Volume 2, Munich 1884, p. 110, No. 1065
  3. ^ Morton L. Montgomery: Historical and biographical annals of Berks County, Pennsylvania. Embracing a concise history of the county and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families . JH Beers & Co., Chicago 1909, Volume 1, pp. 712 f. ( Digitized version )
  4. ^ Johann Henrich Behne , website in the findagrave .com portal , accessed on May 6, 2018
  5. ^ De Benneville Randolph Keim: The Keim and Allied Families in America and Europe . Volume 1, No. 1-12, Harrisburg / Pennsylvania 1898, pp. 209 ff.
  6. ↑ Finding aid 212.01.04 Student lists of the Art Academy Düsseldorf , website in the portal archive.nrw.de ( Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen )
  7. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel , Sabine Schroyen, Lydia Immerheiser, Sabine Teichgröb: Directory of foreign artists. Nationality, residence and studies in Düsseldorf . 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, p. 426
  8. ^ The Executive Documents Printed by Order of the Senate of the United States, First Session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1859-1860 . Washington, DC 1860, pp. 18-22
  9. ↑ 01065 Gustav Behné, matriculation book 1841–1884 , Academy of Fine Arts Munich, accessed on May 6, 2018
  10. ^ Peter E. Palmquist, Thomas R. Kailbourn: Pioneer Photographers from the Mississippi to the Continental Divide. A Biographical Dictionary, 1839-1865 . Stanford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-8047-4057-9 , p. 101 ( Google Books )
  11. ↑ Behn, Gustav . 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. 204 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Behne, Gustavus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Behne, Gustavus Adolphus (full name); Behne, Gustavus Adolphus; Behné, Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American portrait, history, landscape and still life painter of the Düsseldorf and Munich schools
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Werningshausen , Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
DATE OF DEATH 1895
Place of death Fürstenfeldbruck , Kingdom of Bavaria