Nicola Marshal

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Self-portrait, oil on canvas, 1867

Nicola Marschall (born March 16, 1829 in St. Wendel , † February 24, 1917 in Louisville , Kentucky ) was a well-known German - American artist .

Life

Nicola Marschall was the eldest son of the St. Wendel landlord and tobacco spinner Emanuel Johann Marschall, who had brought his hometown to a certain degree of prosperity. From 1846 to 1849, Marschall studied painting at the Düsseldorf Art Academy . Wilhelm von Schadow was his teacher at the Düsseldorf Academy . In 1849 Marschall emigrated to the USA and came to Marion via New Orleans , Louisiana and Mobile , Alabama . There he took a position as an art teacher at Marion Female Seminary in 1851 . In the following years he earned a good reputation as a portrait painter . After a study trip through France and Italy , he returned to Marion in 1859.

Self-portrait, oil on canvas, 1893

On January 11, 1861, Alabama joined the Confederate States of America and left the Union. During this time, Marschall is said to have designed the ( "Stars and Bars" ) for the Confederate States . Unfortunately, there is not a single solid evidence for this, nor for the tradition that he was responsible for the design of the gray uniforms of the Confederate Army. The fact that in Germany and in America he is considered the designer of “stars and bars” he owes to a long-standing dispute he had in 1910 with an American named Orren Randolph Smith from Louisburg, North Carolina. Neither of them could ultimately prove that they had actually designed the flag. During the Civil War he served as First Lieutenant under Samuel Lockett.

Due to the economic depression in the south, Marshal moved from Marion to Mobile in 1872 and to Louisville, Kentucky a year later. At the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia , the first official world exhibition in the USA , in 1876 he won a medal for his portraits. In 1908 he had to give up painting for health reasons; during his career he portrayed Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, among others .

Honors

On March 4, 1935, a monument was inaugurated in Marion (Alabama) in memory of the design of the "Stars and Bars", which was attributed to the Marshal. It is located in the historic Marion Courthouse Square district.

literature

  • Devereaux D. Cannon, Jr., The Genesis of the "Stars and Bars" , published in Raven, Vol. 12, 2005, pp. 1-26 ISSN  1071-0043
  • Wolfgang Ulbrich: Nicola Marschall (1829–1917) - A painter from St. Wendel in the American southern states , Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2012, ISBN 978-3-86110-520-6
  • Estill Curtis Pennington: Marshal, Nicola. In: The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Vol. 21: Art and Architecture. Edited by Judith H. Bonner and Estill Curtis Pennington. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2013. ISBN 978-0-8078-3717-7 , pp. 368 f.

Web links

Commons : Nicola Marschall  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Museum Kunstpalast : Artists from the Düsseldorf School of Painting (selection, as of November 2016, PDF )
  2. ↑ Alabaman's Honor Marshal. In: Evening Star. 33.179, March 4, 1935, p. B-4 ( online at Chronicling America ). - The inscription on a metal plate reads: In Honor of Nicola Marschall | 1829-1917 | Who designed at Marion, Ala. | the Stars and Bars | first official flag adopted | by the Confederate | States of America, at | Montgomery, Ala. March 4, 1861 | then raised over dome | of that first Confederate | capitol. He also designed | the Confederate uniform.
  3. ^ National Register of Historic Places. Continuation sheet. Section No. 7, p. 16, No. 102 ( online as PDF).
personal data
SURNAME Marshal, Nicola
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Wendel
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1917
Place of death Louisville