Hans Thoma

Hans Thoma (2 October 1839 – 7 November 1924) was a German painter.

Biography

Hans Thoma was born on 2 October 1839 in Bernau in the Black Forest, Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of painting by a painter of clock faces. He entered the Karlsruhe academy in 1859, where he studied under Johann Wilhelm Schirmer and Ludwig des Coudres – the latter of which had a major influence on his career. He subsequently studied and worked, with but indifferent success, in Düsseldorf, Paris, Italy, Munich and Frankfurt, until his reputation became firmly established as the result of an exhibition of some thirty of his paintings in Munich. He died in Karlsruhe in 1924 at the age of 85.

Style

In spite of his studies under various masters, his art has little in common with modern ideas, and is formed partly by his early impressions of the simple idyllic life of his native district, partly by his sympathy with the early German masters, particularly with Albrecht Altdorfer and Lucas Cranach the Elder. In his love of the details of nature, in his precise drawing of outline, and in his predilection for local coloring, he has distinct affinities with the Pre-Raphaelites.

Works

Many of his pictures have found their way into two private collections in Liverpool. A portrait of the artist and two subject pictures, ''The Guardian of the Valley'' and ''Spring Idyll'' are at the Galerie Neue Meister; ''Eve in Paradise'' and ''The Open Valley'' at the Städel. Other important pictures of his are ''Paradise'', ''Christ and Nicodemus'', ''The Flight into Egypt'', ''Charon'', ''Pietà'', ''Adam and Eve'', ''Solitude'', ''Tritons'', besides many landscapes and portraits.

He also produced numerous lithographs and pen drawings, and some decorative mural paintings, notably in a café at Frankfurt, and in the music room of the Alfred Pringsheim house in Munich.

Selected works

File:Hans Thoma Spätsommertag im Schwarzwald 1892.jpg, Late Summer Day in the Black Forest
File:1873 Thoma Der Rhein bei Saeckingen anagoria.JPG, The Rhine Near Seackingen
File:Hans Thoma - Sonntagsfrieden.jpg, Sunday Peace
File:Thoma Still life with a hare.jpg, Still life with a hare, pheasants and a lobster
File:Thoma Diana under the tree.jpg, Diana under the tree
File:Hans Thoma - Der Kunstschriftsteller Conrad Fiedler.jpg, Portrait of Conrad Fiedler
File:Hans Thoma - Bildnis der beiden Töchter der Familie Haag (1883).jpg, The Haag Daughters
File:Hans Thoma - Sommer - Google Art Project.jpg, Summer
File:Hans Thoma - Die Berge von Carrara.jpg, The Mountains of Carrara
File:Hans Thoma - Die Gralsburg.jpg, The Gralsburg
File:Hans Thoma 009.jpg, Landscape
File:Hans Thoma - Blick auf Mamolsheim.jpg, View of Mamolsheim
File:Hans Thoma Versuchung auf dem Berge.jpg, Temptation on the Mount

File:Hans Thoma - Kinder mit Ziegenherde (1916).jpg, Children with a Herd of Goats
File:Thoma Acht tanzende Frauen in Vogelkörpern 1886.jpg, Eight Dancing Maidens in Bird Costumes
File:Hans Thoma Dezember.jpg, December
File:Hans Thoma Juni.jpg, June
File:Hans Thoma - Selbstporträt VI mit Blume (1919).jpg, Self-Portrait with Flower

References

*

External links

''German masters of the nineteenth century: paintings and drawings from the Federal Republic of Germany''
a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Hans Thoma (nos. 91–95)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thoma, Hans
1839 births
1924 deaths
People from Waldshut (district)
People from the Grand Duchy of Baden
19th-century German painters
19th-century German male artists
German male painters
20th-century German painters
20th-century German male artists
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)