August Wilhelm Leu (24 March 1818 – 20 July 1897) was a German landscape painter of the Romantic school. Most of his pictures are large-format and depict scenes in Norway and the Alps.

Biography

Leu was born in

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

. He was a pupil of

Johann Wilhelm Schirmer Johann Wilhelm Schirmer (5 September 1807 in Jülich – 11 September 1863 in Karlsruhe) was a German landscape artist born in Jülich, within the Kingdom of Prussia, Prussian Duchy of Jülich. Biography Schirmer was started as a student of ...

, a landscape painter of the

Düsseldorf school Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the seventh-largest city in Germany, with a 2022 population of 629,047. The Düssel, ...

.A. Hk., "Leu, August Wilhelm", ''

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'', 2nd ed. (1915–30), Volume XV: ''Kvadratrod – Ludmila'', p. 724
online
at

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.''

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'', 6th ed. (1902–13), Volume 12: ''L – Lyra''
pp. 456–57
. Leu travelled in Norway in 1843 and 1847, and later travelled widely in the Alps. His Norwegian paintings raised awareness in Germany of that country's scenery. He lived for a time in

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, then returned to Düsseldorf; in 1855 he received an honourable mention at the Paris Exposition. In 1882 he moved to Berlin, where he became a royal professor and a member of the

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; he was also a member of the

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and Brussels Academies."Leu, August (Wilhelm)", ''Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings'', ed. John Denison Champlin, Jr. and Charles C. Perkins, (1913 ed.), New York: Scribner's, , Volume 3
p. 72
Clara Erskine Clement Waters and Laurence Hutton, ''Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works: A Handbook Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches'', 5th ed. Boston: Osgood, 1889,
p. 63
He received several gold medals in Berlin and was awarded the Belgian

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. His son, also named August Leu (1852–76) studied under him and was a landscape and animal painter. Leu died in

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, Switzerland.

Selected works

* ''Hardangerfjord im Sonnenlicht (1849), Kunstverein Bremen (1849), now Private Collection in Norway'' * ''Norwegian Landscape with Waterfall'' (1849) * ''Sognefjord'' (1849) * ''Hohe Göll at Berchtesgaden'' (1859) * ''Oeschinen Lake'' (1876) * ''Queen Joanne's Palace at Naples'' (1886) * ''Pool at Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains'' (1888) * ''On the Engstlenalp'' (1893) * ''Königsee and Watzmann'' * ''Norwegian High Plateau'' * ''Sunset on the Coast at Sorrento'' File:August Wilhelm Leu - Alpiner Berggipfel (1896).jpg, ''Alpine Peak'' (1896) File:August Wilhelm Leu - Blick von der Wengerenalp auf Eiger und Mönch (1865).jpg, ''View of the Eiger and the Mönch from the Wengerenalp'' (1865) File:August Wilhelm Leu - Fjordlandschaft mit Gletscher und Rentieren (1896).jpg, ''Fjord Landscape with Glacier and Reindeer'' (1896) File:August Wilhelm Leu - Norwegische Fjordlandschaft (1849).jpg, ''Norwegian Fjord Landscape'' (1849) File:August Wilhelm Leu Matterhorn.jpg, ''Matterhorn''

References

External links

*
August Wilhelm Leu
at Van Ham auction house,

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August Wilhelm Leu
at

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auction house, London and New York {{DEFAULTSORT:Leu, August Wilhelm 1818 births 1897 deaths 19th-century German painters German male painters German landscape painters Artists from Münster Painters from North Rhine-Westphalia 19th-century German male artists