Frieda Blell (4 September 1874,

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

– 5 March 1951,

Gauting Gauting is a Municipalities of Germany, municipality in the Starnberg (district), district of Starnberg, in Bavaria, Germany with a population of more than 20,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the river Würm (Amper), Würm, southwest of Munich ...

) was a German landscape painter.

Life

She was born to a long-established family of cloth merchants. Her father, , was a wholesale dealer, who served in the Reichstag and the

Prussian Landtag The Landtag of Prussia () was the representative assembly of the Kingdom of Prussia implemented in 1849, a bicameral legislature consisting of the upper House of Lords (''Herrenhaus'') and the lower House of Representatives (''Abgeordnetenhaus'') ...

. He was not sympathetic to her artistic ambitions so, in 1900, she struck out on her own to study art in Munich. There, she met the

Expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

painter, Leo Putz, and served as his model for several years. After 1909, they spent the Summers on the

Chiemsee Chiemsee () is a freshwater lake in Bavaria, Germany, near Rosenheim. It is often called "the Bavarian Sea". The rivers Tiroler Achen and Prien (river), Prien flow into the lake from the south, and the river Alz flows out towards the north. The ...

with their friends, the artist Clara Lotte von Marcard and her husband, the American painter,

Edward Cucuel Edward Cucuel (August 6, 1875, San Francisco – April 18, 1954, Pasadena, California) was an American-born painter who lived and worked in Germany. Life and work He was the son of a German newspaper publisher. At the age of fourteen he was alre ...

. He also featured her in a few of his works, including "Herbstsonne", a depiction of the young Blell in the park by the lake shore near Castel Hartmannsberg. In 1913, she and Putz were married. Two years later, their son Helmut was born. She continued to paint, mostly landscapes and pictures of flowers for '' Jugend'' (Youth), a magazine in Munich. In 1923, they moved to

, where he specialized in nudes and scenes with boats. From 1929 to 1933, they lived in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

, where Leo had been appointed a Professor. Following the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

takeover, he expressed opposition to the new régime, and his works were declared to be " degenerate". As a result, rather than return to Germany, they went to live in his hometown of

Merano Merano (, ; ) or Meran () is a (municipality) in South Tyrol, Northern Italy. Generally best known for its Spa town, spa resorts, it is located within a Depression (geology), basin, surrounded by mountains standing up to Height above mean sea ...

, Italy, where he died in 1940, following an operation. After the war, she returned to their old home in Gauting.

External links

1874 births 1951 deaths 20th-century German painters Artists from Brandenburg 20th-century German women painters {{Germany-painter-stub

Life

Further reading

External links