920 - Erich Krüger, "Im Stollental am Büchenberg", Harz landscape, forest clearing with view of the valley

Erich Krüger, "Im Stollental am Büchenberg", Harz landscape, forest clearing with view of the valley (1897 Berlin – 1978 Benzingerode), oil/canvas, signed lower right "E. Krüger", inscribed on the reverse, 20th century, view from a sunny forest meadow across a wooded valley to layered blue ranges of hills, on the left coniferous forest on the slope, on the right tall conifers with reddish trunks, bushes and boulders in the meadow, sky with white clouds, condition commensurate with age, damaged upper centre, overpainted, losses to the paint, craquelure, image 50.5x60.5 cm (HxW), framed, frame chipped, frame width 7.5 cm Erich Krüger was born in Berlin in 1897 and studied at the Berlin Academy of Art, interrupted by the First World War; his teachers included Bruno Paul and Paul Müller-Kaempff. After his Berlin studio was destroyed in 1944 he moved to Benzingerode near Wernigerode, where he lived until his death in 1978. There the landscape painter created above all Harz pictures and flower pieces; his paintings are in the Harzmuseum Wernigerode and the Museum Schloss Wernigerode. The Büchenberg named in the title is the elevation north of Elbingerode in the Harz Nature Park, whose tunnel system goes back to mining from the late Middle Ages to the 1970s and is known today as a show mine and as a nature reserve with bat roosts.