Heinrich Lessing

Heinrich Lessing with his wife, 1905/1906. Photo by Zander & Labisch .

Heinrich Lessing (born May 29, 1856 in Düsseldorf , † January 17, 1930 in Berlin ) was a German portrait and landscape painter .

Life

First, as the youngest son, he was a student of his father, the history painter Carl Friedrich Lessing . He then attended the Karlsruhe Art School (1875–1879), then the Berlin Art Academy (1879–1882) under Karl Gussow . He also went on study trips to Holland and Belgium. He then worked as a freelance artist. From 1881 to 1911 he was regularly represented at exhibitions.

Through his father and grandfather, the lawyer and politician Carl Friedrich Lessing, he belongs to the direct relatives of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . His brother Otto Lessing was a well-known sculptor, craftsman and painter of the imperial era, another brother, Konrad Lessing (1852-1916), also worked as a painter. The sister Bertha Lessing (1844–1914) married the actor Carl Ferdinand Koberstein (1836–1899). Their son Hans Koberstein also became a painter. A cousin of the Lessing brothers, Malvine Schroedter (1847–1901), daughter of Adolph Schroedter , married the painter and Academy President in Berlin Anton von Werner .

Heinrich Lessing found his final resting place in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf . His cousin judge Friedrich Müller , one of the co-owners of the Vossische Zeitung , rests with his family in this cemetery . His mausoleum was transferred to Stahnsdorf in 1939 in the course of the closure of the Old St. Matthew Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg , which was carried out by Albert Speer , the General Building Inspector for the “ World Capital Germania ” . The grave slab of Marie Friederike Lessing, née Voss (1752–1828), the sister-in-law of the poet Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , was kept in this mausoleum until it was salvaged by the cemetery administration .

Works

• Hennigsdorf (1885),
• Very fatal (1886),
• The Sisters (1892),
• On the Heath (1892),
• Auf Göhren (1893),
• Kaiser Wilhelm II with family in the Marble Palace (1893),
• On the west bank of the Vilm (1894),
• On the seashore (1895),
• In the cloister peace (1895),
• At the bedside ,
• Procession in Gerolstein ,
• Cochem Castle
• Gallery garden ,
• Portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II (as full figure)
• Portrait of his father (Kunsthalle Karlsruhe).

literature

• Lessing, Heinrich . In: Friedrich von Boetticher : painter works of the nineteenth century. Contribution to art history . Vol. I, 2, Dresden 1895, p. 844.
• Intellectual Germany at the end of the 19th century. Vol. I, Leipzig / Berlin 1898.
• Arend Buchholtz : History of the Lessing Family , Berlin 1909, Bd. II.
• Friedrich Jansa: German visual artists in words and pictures. Leipzig 1912.
• General lexicon of visual artists from antiquity to the present. Vol. 23, Leipzig 1992, p. 129.
• Jörg Kuhn: Otto Lessing (1846–1912), sculptor, craftsman, painter. Life and work of a sculptor of late historicism, with special consideration of his work as a building sculptor , Phil. Diss. FU Berlin 1994. Reading copy a. a. in the art library of the State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin, Matthäiplatz 8.
• Jörg Kuhn: Hans Koberstein "My Uncle Otto". The unknown biography of a sculptor in imperial Berlin , in: Yearbook 1994 of the Association for the History of Berlin, Vol. XLIII, 1994, pp. 105–124.
• Jörg Kuhn: Ms. Mint director MF Lessing, nee Voss, and the story of a grave slab in the south-west cemetery Stahnsdorf , in: Yearbook 2006 of the Association for the History of Berlin, Vol. LV, Berlin 2006, pp. 55–64. ISSN  0522-0033

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Lessing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files