832 - Walter Kuphal, half-timbered street, probably Goslar, or Osterwieck or Halberstadt, 1st half 20th c.

Walter Kuphal, half-timbered street, probably Goslar, or Osterwieck or Halberstadt, 1st half 20th c. (1890 Neuruppin – 1937 Neuruppin), oil/canvas, signed lower right, 1st half of the 20th century, view into a rising street with half-timbered houses, probably in Goslar, not securely identified, Osterwieck or Halberstadt are also possible, on the left a row of houses with ochre facades and red tiled roofs, on the right a jettied half-timbered house with a light gable and dark roof, in the foreground the cobbled street, lower right stone steps and a kerb, above light blue sky with whitish clouds, condition commensurate with age, image 61x50.5 cm (HxW), framed, frame rubbed, frame width 7.5 cm Walter Kuphal, born in Neuruppin in 1890 and died there in 1937, first trained as a lithographer at Oehmigke und Riemschneider, worked in theatre and flag painting and then studied in the Berlin studio of the landscape painter Hans Licht (1876–1935). From 1919 he worked in Neuruppin as a painter and graphic artist, in oil, watercolour, etching and lithography. Travels took him to the Harz, to southern Germany including Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Nuremberg, and to the Alps; among other outlets, his work was sold on commission through the Kunsthandlung Fricke in Bad Harzburg. Alongside the landscapes, townscapes with half-timbering form a distinct group of motifs in his work, including several views of the market square in Goslar. Stylistically he is close to a naturalistic realism shaped by Impressionism. The street depicted is not inscribed and could not be securely identified; it probably shows a lane in Goslar, though the half-timbered towns of Osterwieck and Halberstadt are also possible.