4499 - Wilhelm Schmurr, Old Peasant Couple in the Field

Wilhelm Schmurr, Old Peasant Couple in the Field A peasant leaning on a pitchfork, his wife holding a white cloth; behind them, a field with a sparse tree; the sun in the top right-hand corner, an autumn day; a slightly impastoed painting in brown tones; consistently melancholic works depicting largely simple peasant life; the composition of the painting is reminiscent of the Worpswede artists’ colony, particularly Paula Modersohn-Becker, oil on cardboard, signed lower left, signs of ageing, minor retouching, framed, inner dimensions 43 x 35.5 cm . Artist information: real name Josef Wilhelm Schmurr, German painter (1878 Hagen/Westphalia - 1959 Düsseldorf), spent his early childhood in Hagen, moved to Düsseldorf in 1892, initially a pupil for a short time at the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts, studied briefly at the Düsseldorf Academy under Heinrich Lauenstein in 1894, and continued his training under Johann Peter Theodor Janssen, Eduard von Gebhardt and Arthur Kampf; was ultimately a master pupil of Claus Meyer; undertook study trips to Italy, England, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Belgium; took part in exhibitions in Vienna and Salzburg in 1904-05; was awarded the Golden State Medal; spent 1905-06 in Paris with his wife Emmy; in 1907, he won a gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition; served in the First World War in Russia from 1914 to 1918; was a member of the Düsseldorf artists’ association ‘Malkasten’ from 1901 to 1959, 1904-14: Member of the artists’ group “Laetitia”; 1905: Member of the “Düsseldorf Art Association”; 1906: Founded the exhibition club “Weißer Nessel” with Julius Bretz, Max Clarenbach, August Deusser and Walter Ophey; in 1909, co-founder of the Sonderbund in Düsseldorf; later a member of the artists’ association “Die Friedfertigen” and of the “Rheinische Sezession”, the “Westfälische Sezession” and the “Westdeutscher Künstlerbund”, 1927-47: Professor at the Düsseldorf Academy; member of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts; exhibited at the Great German Art Exhibition at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich from 1937 to 1944; 1938: solo exhibition at the Düsseldorf Kunstverein, In 1954, he was honoured with the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Prize by the City of Hagen and, in 1958, received the Federal Cross of Merit; he was also an honorary member of the ‘Wirtschaftsverband bildender Künstler Düsseldorf’ and the artists’ association ‘Malkasten’; he worked in Düsseldorf-Oberkassel, Source: Thieme-Becker, Vollmer, Saur, *Bio-Bibliographical Encyclopaedia of Artists*; Jansa, Dressler, student registers of the Düsseldorf Academy; Müller-Singer, Bruckmann, *Encyclopaedia of the Düsseldorf School of Painting*; Davidson, Pavière and Wikipedia.