4435 - Arthur Kampf, Worker in the Sun

Arthur Kampf, Worker in the Sun Kneeling figure facing left, bare-chested, reaching for his belt with his left hand, holding a long stick in his right hand; in the background, a bush, behind which lies an oriental-looking cityscape, impasto painting with a broad brush, a precursor to the ‘Blood and Soil’ style of the Nazi era, during which Kampf was also one of the artists receiving state support, oil on canvas, signed lower right, old numbering in pencil on the reverse of the stretcher: ‘No. 1304”, signs of age, framed, inner dimensions 71.5 x 55.5 cm; in Andreas Schroyen’s catalogue raisonné, the work is listed under No. “G 1900-1925/III”; there it is dated between 1900 and 1925, with incorrect dimensions and additional provenance details given, see Andreas Schroyen, Arthur Kampf (1864-1950), A German Artist’s Career between the German Empire and National Socialism, Part 2, Catalogue Raisonné, PhD thesis, Düsseldorf 2022, p. 175 (available online), Artist information: actually Egbert Paul Arthur Kampf, German painter, graphic artist, fresco painter and illustrator (1864, Aachen - 1950, Castrop-Rauxel), son of the Aachen-based painter and imperial court photographer August Kampf; initially received artistic support from Nikolas B. Salm in Cologne; studied from 1879 to 1888 at the Düsseldorf Academy under Eduard von Gebhardt, Andreas Müller, Carl Ernst Forberg and Julius Amatus Roeting; from 1883 a master student under Peter Janssen; from 1887 an assistant lecturer and, from 1893, a professor at the Düsseldorf Academy; undertook numerous study trips, including to Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain; from 1899 to 1932 he was a professor and head of a master’s studio at the Berlin Academy; in 1901 he became a member and, from 1907 to 1912, president of the Berlin Academy of Arts; in 1912 he was ennobled; from 1915 to 1925, he succeeded Anton von Werner as Director of the Berlin-Charlottenburg School of Art, In 1939, he was awarded the Eagle Shield of the German Reich and, in 1944, was included on the ‘Gottbegnadeten’ list; from 1887 to 1898, he was a member of the Malkasten Artists’ Association; 1892-1903: Member of the ‘St. Lucas Artists’ Club’ of the Düsseldorf Artists’ Association and the ‘Free Association of Düsseldorf Artists’; honorary member of the Association of Rhenish-Westphalian Artists, the Society of German Watercolourists and the Association of German Illustrators, 1900-30: member of the Association of Berlin Artists, member of the German Artists’ Association in Weimar and honorary member of the Reich Association of Visual Artists of Germany, member of the academies in Dresden and Vienna, active in Düsseldorf, Aachen and Berlin-Charlottenburg; sources: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, Dressler, Bénézit, Müller-Singer, Bruckmann, *Lexikon der Düsseldorfer Malerschule*; Saur, *Bio-Bibliographisches Künstlerlexikon*; and Wikipedia.