Karl Keller (painter)
Karl Keller (born July 16, 1823 , † 1904 in Munich ) was a German painter. He belonged to the Pfronten- based painter family Keller. He was mainly active in the Allgäu and Swabian regions.
Life and works
Karl Keller was the second son of Alois Keller and thus a grandson of Joseph Keller and a nephew of Anton Keller . In addition to his brother Friedrich, who was also to embark on an artistic career, he had five other siblings who were reaching adulthood. At the age of 17, Karl Keller began studying history painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, but he was not officially enrolled until 1843. He probably belonged to Heinrich Hess' class from that year , and Johann Schraudolph was also one of his teachers . Schraudolph (1808–1879) was a brother of Claudius and Matthias Schraudolph and was appointed successor to Hess in 1848 against Wilhelm Kaulbach's will . How Karl Keller earned his living after completing his studies is unknown. It has been speculated that he might have worked for Schraudolph on public contracts. B. Schraudolph's collaborators in the frescoes in Speyer Cathedral are all known by name - Karl Keller is not one of them. But it is also unlikely that he worked for his father in the years after his studies, because Alois Keller did not have any major assignments during this time. More detailed information about his living conditions can only be found in a document from November 1851: At that time he applied for his naturalization in Munich and a marriage permit, which required a corresponding financial situation. In 1852 he received permission to marry the accountant's daughter Aloisia Arnold, who was eleven years older than the painter. How he earned the 600 to 700 guilders annually, which he stated as income in the application, is unknown. In the following years he worked as a church and portrait painter, as a copier, restorer and drawing teacher. He did not receive the first known major commission until 1864. At that time, he was entrusted with the decoration of the church in Sulzschneid after Franz Osterried , who had initially been commissioned to do this, died in 1863. Keller was asked to continue using the existing designs. He furnished the church with two frescoes, two altarpieces and several oil paintings. It was only much later that he received similarly extensive orders, for example in Steinach , Wasserburg am Bodensee and Altusried . Karl Keller is said to have been most productive, at an advanced age, in the years 1891 to 1894, and he probably decorated the last church in 1895 in Heitlers . He did not get rich in this life; the Münchner Kunstverein had to finance his funeral in the old northern cemetery in Munich .
Many of Keller's works have not survived or have been lost. It is known that he decorated 16 churches in the Allgäu, he did other commissioned work in the Swabian and old Bavarian regions, in Munich, his place of residence, he created at least one ceiling painting in the Georgianum . Many of his frescoes were painted over or removed during the times when the Nazarene was no longer held in great esteem; the fate of numerous altarpieces by Keller's hand is unknown. How many portraits he painted can no longer be determined either. It has been passed down that he created numerous depictions of the Stations of the Cross, but only the 14 stations in the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Hopfen am See can be assigned with certainty. As an experienced painter, he created his pictures at high speed, in addition, he often used templates for his compositions. He often used templates from his own family. His Maria Immaculata in Wasserburg almost certainly goes back to an altar painting by Claudius Schraudolph in Hopfen. Once a composition was found to be good, he liked to use it several times. This can be done e.g. B. can be seen in the two depictions of St. Sebastian in Dietkirch and Triebling , which were painted three years apart. In his youth he was influenced by the restoration of the Asam frescoes in Einsiedeln , with which he and his older brother supported their father; In addition, his first manual training was certainly held as part of the family. Although he was shaped by Nazarism at the academy, he did not come into conflict with his father, who was still influenced by Baroque and Classicism , and with whom he repeatedly consulted in writing about his work. The resurrection of Christ , which he painted for the church in Wasserburg, took up a motif that his grandfather had already worked on on an altarpiece in the parish church of St. Nikolaus in Berg and his father in Balgach . Karl Keller used the traditional figure type and only redesigned it in the style of the Nazarenes.
In St. Pankratius in Sulzschneid, the beheading of St. Pankratius , four church fathers , the handing over of the scapular to St. Simon Stock and the representation of the Twelve Apostles from 1864 have been preserved. Keller's frescoes in the parish church of St. Georg in Memmenhausen from 1867 have been destroyed or painted over , while a Maria Immaculate from 1880 has been preserved in the branch church of St. Michael in Pfronten-Steinbach . He treated the same subject in 1883 in St. Vitus in Weicht; the picture there was removed in 1922. In 1923 the basement frescoes from 1884 were painted over in the parish church of the Assumption of Mary in Maihingen . Several works by Karl Keller from the years 1887 to 1891 have been preserved in the parish church of St. Blasius and Alexander in Altusried . Until 1965 there were also frescoes by the painter in the parish church of St. Georg in Aislingen . They were from 1889. In St. Othmar in Akams there is possibly a basement painting under the choir fresco from 1926. His apostle pictures in St. Peter and Paul from 1890 in old towns have been destroyed, as are the frescoes in St. Stephan in Bühl near Immenstadt. A fresco from 1893 existed in St. Georg in Laimering until 1971 . The mission of the Apostles on the ceiling of the staircase in the Georgianum in Munich from 1893 fell victim to the effects of the war. The pictures from 1895 in the St. Leonhardt branch church in Pfronten-Heitlern were removed in 1961.
The dating of another fresco is uncertain. In St. Trinity in Sulzberg there was still a resurrection of Christ , which was painted over by Oswald Völkel in 1919 . It is unknown whether Andreas Schmid's attribution of the Four Church Fathers in St. Gordian and Epimach in Unterroth to Keller is correct.
In addition to frescoes, Keller also created numerous oil paintings, including B. two altarpieces for the Kunreuth church, and a Holy Family from 1893, which was once used as a side altarpiece in St. Stephan in Hawangen and is now in the parish hall of the community.
Aftermath
An exhibition on the works of the painters from the Keller family was shown in 1998 in Füssen and Zug .
literature
- Vanessa Haberland: Karl Keller (1823–1904). With catalog raisonné. In: Andreas Tacke (ed.): Autumn of the Baroque. The Keller family. Munich / Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-422-06229-7 , pp. 513-524
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bertold Pölcher, Malerweg , in: Pfronten Mosaik , Issue 40, 2006, online at heimatverein-pfronten.de
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Keller, Karl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 16, 1823 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1904 |
| Place of death | Munich |