Alfred Schmidt (1876 ????- 1956) – Portrait of the concert singer Caroline Naase
Oil on canvas circa 1920
60 x 47 cm – without frame
78 x 65 cm – frame included
Signed center right: Alf Schmidt.
Alfred Schmidt
1876 Dresden – 1956 Graefelfing
An impressionist at the Chiemsee
The painterly mood content, which the artist Alfred Schmidt captured in countless variations on the canvas, occupies such an eminent and substantial position that it is inextricably linked to his oeuvre. “[…] Female creatures walking in the shimmering air […]”(1), who find their pleasure in the warm, golden tones of summer and the grey-silver shimmering water surface of the lake, correspond to the characteristic motif of the native of Dresden. One is inevitably reminded of the impressionist Christian Landenberger (1862-1927), to whom Schmidt was a friend and who painted canvas on canvas at Lake Ammersee, but “[…] softer, sweeter and more narrative, because he [Schmidt] often expands on that Nature and the human body come together to create a small, genre-like idyll”(2).
His art is a commitment to plein air painting. He openly displays his impressionistic impetus. The originally anecdotal aspects of his painting, which he had experienced at the Karlsruhe Academy from 1886 to 1893, he gradually put aside both through the one-year study visit to Paris and Brittany in 1889 and through the influence of Landenberger and Swabian landscape painting. From this point onwards, artistic development is hardly noticeable. He had found his individual style and stuck to it.
At the end of 1899, Schmidt came to the Swabian capital from Karlsruhe in the entourage of Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth (1855-1922), who was appointed to the Stuttgart Academy with Carlos Grethe (1864-1913) and Robert Poetzelberger...
Category
Vintage 1920s German Art Deco Paintings