Christian Friedrich Rohlfs (1849 - 1938)

Born 22 Dec 1849 in Groß Niendorf, Leezen, Segeberg, Schleswig-Holstein, Deutschland

Ancestors

Died 8 Jan 1938 at age 88 in Hagen, Westfalen, Preußen, Deutschland

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Biography

Christian Rohlfs is Notable.

Christian Friedrich Rohlfs was born 22 Dec 1849 in Groß Niendorf, Kreis Segeberg, Provinz Schleswig-Holstein, Königreich Preußen, Deutscher Bund as son son of the small farmer Herrmann Heinrich Rohlfs and Anna Margaretha Rohlfs, née Finnern.

In 1851 he moved with his parents to nearby Fredesdorf. He also attended the one-class village school there.

In 1864, he seriously injures his leg in a fall from a tree and is confined to bed. He begins to paint and is supported by his family doctor, Dr. Stolle (brother-in-law of Theodor Storm).

Since he could not take over the parental farm because of a resulting walking disability, he was allowed to attend a secondary school in Segeberg in 1866-69. Through the efforts of the family doctor, Dr. Ernst Stolle, and his brother-in-law Theodor Storm, he received a free position at the Grand Ducal School of Art in Weimar. Here he took up the traditional training in figure, nude and genre painting in 1870, until he fell ill again in 1871. In 1874 the right leg was amputated.

In October of the same year, he continued his studies and turned to realistic landscape painting. First confronted with works by Monet in June 1890, his extensive painterly oeuvre up to 1900 showed all stages of development from realism to the open-air painting then in vogue. In 1901, on Henry van de Velde's recommendation, he was brought to Hagen by Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874-1921), where he became acquainted with works by van Gogh, Gauguin, and Matisse during the planning for the Folkwang Museum that was being built, as well as with the young Brücke artists, who remained friends with him. A lifelong friendship also grew out of his acquaintance with Emil Nolde (1867-1956), begun in Soest in 1906. In the following years he searched for his own formal language (remarkable the group of works "Soest" 1905/06), which he found after various stylistic experiments between 1910 and 1912 in Munich.

With the paintings and woodcuts of expressive religious themes created during World War I, he also became known to a wider audience. The exhibition for his 70th birthday in 1919 in the National Gallery in Berlin brought public recognition as well as numerous follow-up exhibitions in Germany and abroad. From then on, Christian Rohlfs was considered an important representative of classical modernism in Germany and received numerous honors.

In Dec 1919 he married the 43 year younger Helene Margaretha Ottilia Emilia Vogt. The couple had no children.

In the 1920s Christian Rohlfs made several trips, painted in Holstein and on the Baltic Sea, in southern Germany and in the Bavarian Alps. The works created here are powerfully colored, large-format works in water temperature technique on paper; painting on canvas, on the other hand, gradually receded.

In 1922 Christian Rohlfs receives an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Aachen (Dr. Ing. h.c.) and 1925 from the University of Kiel (Dr. phil h.c.).

His first encounter with southern light in 1927 in Ascona in the Swiss Ticino, where he stayed for the most part until his death, increased his creative power even in old age. His late work, almost exclusively water-tempera works of partly painting size, was created at a time when he was already defamed as "degenerate" (1937 confiscation of 412 works) and had received exhibition ban. His last works, mainly pictures of landscapes and flowers, are of light, harmonious color. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Christian Rohlfs dies in Hagen (Westphalia) on January 8, 1938. His painting "Last Chrysanthemums" remains unfinished. ^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz106300.html
2. ↑ http://www.christianrohlfs.de/
3. ↑ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rohlfs
4. ↑ Find a Grave, Datenbank und Bilder (https://de.findagrave.com : aufgerufen 13 April 2021), Gedenkstättenseite für Christian Rohlfs (22 Nov 1849–8 Jan 1938), Find A Grave: Memorial #149485511, zitierend Friedhof Delstern, Hagen, Stadtkreis Hagen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany ; Verwaltet von Thomas Haas (Mitwirkender 48162931) .