Hans Unger (August 26, 1872 – August 13, 1936) was a German painter who was, during his lifetime, a highly respected Art Nouveau artist. His popularity did not survive the change in the cultural climate in Germany after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, however, and after his death he was soon forgotten. However, in the 1980s interest in his work revived, and a grand retrospective exhibition in 1997 in the City Museum in

Freital Freital is a town in the district of Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge in Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on a small river, the Weißeritz, and is southwest of Dresden. Geography Freital is located southwest of Dresden in the Döhlen Ba ...

, Germany, duly restored his reputation as one of the masters of the

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

art scene around 1910.

Trademark and artistic influences

Unger was a

portraitist A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

and a

landscape painter Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...

but his reputation stems from his paintings, most of them nearly life-size, of "beautiful women dreaming of

Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...

". In fact, it was always the same woman being portrayed: his wife in real life, his

muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

. Later, his daughter Maja came to share her mother's privileged position. The background to his "Arcadian woman" was quite often a pastoral landscape with high cypresses, a garden or a seaside scene. In his work he was influenced by some important 19th-century and contemporary artists, among who were:

Puvis de Chavannes Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Bea ...

("beauty as religion"),

Gustave Moreau Gustave Moreau (; 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898) was a French artist and an important figure in the Symbolist movement. Jean Cassou called him "the Symbolist painter par excellence".Cassou, Jean. 1979. ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Symbolism.' ...

, Josephin Péladan (the androgyne type), Fernand Khnopff (sphinx-like women, although Unger omitted the lascivious eroticism of Khnopff),

William Strang William Strang (13 February 1859 – 12 April 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of John Bunyan, Bunyan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge and Rudyard Kipling, Kipling. Early life Strang was bor ...

(a British engraver whom Unger met in 1895 in Dresden, and later visited in London) and

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

. Other important influences were

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

, Arnold Böcklin (especially his landscapes) and Max Klinger.

Most important works (and first exhibition)

*''Estey Orgeln'' (poster, 1896) *''Die Muse'' (The Muse), International Art Exhibition Dresden, 1897 *''Das Welken'' (The Withering), 1902 *''Mutter und Kind'' (Mother and Child), King Albert Museum, Chemnitz, 1912 *''Venezianerin'' (Venetian Woman), Galerie Arnold, Dresden, 1916

Early life

Hans Unger was born into a lower-middle-class family in

Bautzen Bautzen () or Budyšin () is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and the administrative centre of the district of Bautzen. It is located on the Spree river. In 2018 the town's population was 39,087. Until 1868, its German name was ''Budi ...

, in the

Lausitz Lusatia (german: Lausitz, pl, Łużyce, hsb, Łužica, dsb, Łužyca, cs, Lužice, la, Lusatia, rarely also referred to as Sorbia) is a historical region in Central Europe, split between Germany and Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr ...

in the southeast corner of Germany near Poland and the Czech Republic. His father quickly recognized his son's artistic talent, but since he did not think painting would be a thriving occupation for young Hans, he sent him to trade school. This was not a success and quite soon Unger became a house painter (''Anstreicher''). In 1887 he took up a training position as a decoration-painter in his home-town. From 1888 to 1893 he was a student in the Painting Class (''Malsaal'') in the Royal Dresden Court Theatre. From 1893 to 1895 he studied at the

Dresden Academy of Fine Arts The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institution is the produc ...

, where his teachers were Friedrich Preller the Younger and Hermann Prell. Unger can be seen as a representative of the Dresdener

Jugendstil ''Jugendstil'' ("Youth Style") was an artistic movement, particularly in the decorative arts, that was influential primarily in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to a lesser extent from about 1895 until about 1910. It was the German counterpart of ...

movement, among whose members were also

Sascha Schneider Rudolph Karl Alexander Schneider, commonly known as Sascha Schneider (21 September 1870 – 18 August 1927), was a German painter and sculptor. Biography Schneider was born in Saint Petersburg in 1870. During his childhood, his family lived ...

, Selmar Werner and

Oskar Zwintscher Oskar Zwintscher (2 May 1870, in Leipzig – 12 February 1916, in Dresden) was a German painter. He is often associated with the Jugendstil movement. Life From 1887 to 1890 he studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig and, ...

. In 1894 he spent summer on the island Bornholm where he made a series of

watercolors Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

. In 1896 he designed a poster (''Plakat'') for the Dresden-based organ manufacturing company Estey, which made him internationally famous and launched his career. In all, he published about a dozen posters that feature for the first time his trademark of the beautiful but dreamlike and almost sleepwalking woman, a motif that was so prominent in much Art Nouveau painting.

Early career

In 1897 his painting ''Die Muse'' (The Muse) was immediately bought by the

Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (, ''Old Masters Gallery'') in Dresden, Germany, displays around 750 paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It includes major Italian Renaissance works as well as Dutch and Flemish paintings. Outstand ...

in Dresden. From October 1897 to March 1898 he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris where his teachers were Fleury and Lefebvre. Another boost to his career was the commission to design the scenic curtain for the newly built Dresdener Centraltheater, in 1899. Unfortunately the building was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden by the Allied forces in February 1945. In 1899 he also took part in the German Art Exhibition (''Deutsche Kunstausstellung'') in Dresden where he had his own room, decorated with lilac walls and a black wooden rim. Among the works displayed was a ''Selbstbildnis im Sweater'' (Self Portrait in Sweater), and ''Abschied'' (Farewell), a landscape. In 1902 he became a member of the newly established German Artists' Union (''Deutsche Künstlerbund'') and travelled to the North Sea, the Baltic, Italy and Egypt, where he made many watercolors and pastel paintings. Unger was a passionate traveler to the South all his life and the powerful colors in his work reflect this. A testimony to this trait is found in the book ''Reisebilder aus dem Süden'' mentioned in the bibliography. In 1905 Unger designed a

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

for the tower of the Ernemann Reisekamera factory in Dresden, portraying a ''Lichtgöttin'' (Light Goddess). The tower still exists on the Schandauerstrasse. In 1898 and 1910, Unger designed the cover illustration for issues of the magazine '' Jugend''. He also illustrated issues of the magazine '' Pan''.

The apex

Around 1910, Unger's style changed notably. His strokes become bolder; his colors lose their intensity and his choice of motif becomes increasingly monotonous. The dreamlike female figure that around the turn of the century was captivating and fresh became a cliché. Her face had turned harsh and without expression. However, in his portraits and landscapes Unger remained as powerful as he had ever been. In 1912, the newly built City Museum in his hometown Bautzen opened and celebrated Unger by giving him his own room. He was at the apex of his fame and was called ''Dresden's letzter Malerfürst'' ("The Last Painting Prince of Dresden") by the press. The outbreak of

in November 1914 forced many young artists to join the military and fight at the front, but Unger was already so prominent in his profession that he was spared this fate and could continue to devote himself to his art. In 1917 Unger participated in the exhibition of the ''Dresdner Kunstgenossenschaft'' (Dresden Artists Society). He designed the catalogue's cover image and featured six paintings, among them '' Salome'' and ''Liegende Mädchen'' (Girls Lying), and six drawings. In 1918 the ''Dresdner Kunst Ausstellung'' (Dresden Art Exhibition) featured Unger with another 11 paintings and 10 drawings. attesting to his popularity and renown in the artistic community. His poster for the concerts of his friend, the composer and director Jean-Louis Nicodé, won him a prize in England for "best German poster".

A lost world

In 1918, Germany lost the war, and it also lost the monarchy. The young artists, returning from the front, were disillusioned and wanted only one thing, which was Change, moving even further away from

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and copying reality as they had done in the years prior to World War I. Unger's world of idealized women in soothing landscapes had been overhauled by the ''

Zeitgeist In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a ''Zeitgeist'' () ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Now, the term is usually associated with Georg W. ...

'' and his work was relegated to the background. Nonetheless, he was still one of the wealthiest artists in Dresden, and he continued to travel to Italy, Dalmatia, Spain, Portugal and Africa. Unger's visits to Egypt resulted in an exhibition in the Galerie Baumbach in Dresden in 1927 and in

King Fuad I Fuad I ( ar, فؤاد الأول ''Fu’ād al-Awwal''; tr, I. Fuad or ; 26 March 1868 – 28 April 1936) was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and the Sudan. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, he became Sulta ...

of Egypt becoming one of his patrons. In 1933 the ''Sächsischer Kunstverein'' (Art Association of Saxony) organized an exhibition on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The arts journalist Felix Zimmermann wrote an honorary article on Unger in the ''Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten'' of August 25, 1932. Meanwhile, his health deteriorated. What later turned out to be a kidney disease was treated too late and Hans Unger died in his home in

Loschwitz Loschwitz is a borough ('' Stadtbezirk'') of Dresden, Germany, incorporated in 1921. It consists of ten quarters (''Stadtteile''): Loschwitz is a villa quarter located at the slopes north of the Elbe river. At the top of the hillside is the quar ...

, a suburb of Dresden, on 9 August 1936. He was buried in

Loschwitz Cemetery Loschwitz Cemetery (german: Loschwitzer Friedhof) is the second burial ground, still in use, of Loschwitz, part of the city of Dresden, Germany, replacing the graveyard of Loschwitz church, no longer used for burials. The cemetery was dedicated in ...

, where his grave still exists. History had certainly caught up with him.

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

was already in power for more than three years, the economy was in the worst state of the entire 20th century and the days of Art Nouveau and

fin de siècle () is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context, ...

were certainly over.

Renewed interest

However, the resurging interest in Jugendstil art in the 1960s brought Unger's work back to the attention of the art connoisseurs. In 1987, the City Museum in

organized an exhibition to commemorate the 125th anniversary of his birth. In 1997 a retrospective exhibition on Unger was held in the City Museum in Freital, Germany. In 2013, an exhibition in

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

titled ''Beauty and Mystery. German symbolism'' featured some of his works along with artists that influenced him such as

Franz von Stuck Franz von Stuck (February 23, 1863 – August 30, 1928), born Franz Stuck, was a German painter, sculptor, printmaker, and architect. Stuck was best known for his paintings of ancient mythology, receiving substantial critical acclaim with '' The ...

, Max Klinger and Arnold Böcklin.

Personal life

Unger married his wife Marie Antonia in 1899. She was to become his muse, his model and the main subject of his works. She is said to have been quite beautiful and the centre of attention of the many friends in the artistic circles in Dresden, especially musicians and writers, which Unger invited to his house. In 1902, Unger designed his own

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...

. His prominence as a daring young artist and his popularity among the Dresden upper class as a portraitist had made him a wealthy man. Unger also designed the entire interior decoration himself. This however was removed during a renovation in the early 1970s. The villa, on the Kügelgenstrasse no. 6, still exists and offers a view on the river

Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Re ...

and, further away, on the Dresden city centre. In 1903, his only child, his daughter Maja, was born, who had clearly inherited her mother's looks. Her godfather was

, a lifelong friend of Unger. After her death in 1973, Unger's estate was sold and scattered.

Gallery

File:Die Muse.jpg, Die Muse (''The muse'') (1897) File:Hans Unger - Sonne.jpg, Sonne (''Sun'') File:Hans Unger - Weiblicher Akt mit Papagei.jpg, Weiblicher Akt mit Papagei (''Female nude with parrot'') File:Liegendes Mädchen.jpg, Liegendes Mädchen (''Reverie'') (1917) File:Poster for Estey Orgeln.jpg, Plakat für Estey Orgeln (''Poster for the Estey organ factory'') (1896) File:Hans Unger Mutter und Kind.jpg, Mutter und Kind (''Mother and child'') (around 1909) File:Sommer (by Hans Unger).jpg, Sommer (''Summer'') (around 1920) File:Windstoss.jpg, Windstoss (''Gust of wind'') (1916) File:Meereslandschaft Tryptichon.jpg, Meereslandschaft Tryptichon (''Seaside landscape triptych'') (before 1910) File:Lichtgöttin.jpg, Lichtgöttin (''Light goddess'') (around 1905) File:Weiblicher studienkopf.jpg, Weiblicher studienkopf (''Female head, study'') (1896) File:Frauenkopf, en face.jpg, Frauenkopf, en face (''Female head, frontal view'') (1897) File:Das Welken.jpg, Das Welken (''Withering'') (1902) File:Erwachen (by Hans Unger).jpg, Erwachen (''Awakening'') (1926)

Bibliography

* Jutta Hülsewig-Johnen, ''Schönheit und Geheimnis. Der deutsche Symbolismus – Die andere Moderne'', Bielefeld : Kerber Verlag, 2013, * A. Dehmer, M. Giebe, K. Krüger, '"Die Muse" von Hans Unger im Klingersaal: Bild und Rahmen im neuen Licht', ''Dresdener Kunstblätter'', 4 (2010), p. 239-244 * Rolf Günther, ''Hans Unger. Leben und Werk mit dem Verzeichnis der Druckgraphik'', Dresden : Neumeister Art Auctioneers, 1997 published at the occasion of the Hans Unger memorial exhibition in the Stadtmuseum of Freital from September 7 to October 26, 1997 * Hans-Günther Hartmann, ''Hans Unger'', Dresden : Verlag der Kunst, 1989, * Henner Menz, ''Hans Unger. Reisebilder aus dem Süden'', Dresden : n 1955 * Eva Schmidt, "Hans Unger" in ''Katalog der Gemäldesammlung des Stadtmuseums Bautzen'', 1954, pp. 117–118 * John Knittel, ''Hans Unger. Sonderausstellung Sächsischer Kunstverein, Dresden, 25. Januar-Mitte März 1933'', Dresden rühlsche Terrasse: Sächsischer Kunstverein, 1933 Much contemporary information on Hans Unger can be found in the German art magazine ''Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration'', now available on-line. There is no complete survey of Unger's works. Some paintings are known only from photos, made and collected by Unger himself. Of some other paintings, the present whereabouts are unknown. The best source is the book by Günther quoted above.

References and sources

On the 1997 exhibition in Freital, see the following articles: * ''Hans Unger. Ein Künstler der Jahrhundertwende in Dresden'', Weltkunst (vol. 18), September 15, 1997, pp. 1862–1864 * ''Erinnerung an Dresdens Malerfürsten'', Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, September 19, 1997 * ''Mäuschen Salome. Die Wiederentdeckung des Jugendstilmalers Hans Unger'', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 25, 1997 * ''Der Traum von Arkadien'', Städtische Zeitung Freital, October 17, 1997 {{DEFAULTSORT:Unger, Hans 1872 births 1936 deaths People from Bautzen People from the Kingdom of Saxony 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters German Symbolist painters Art Nouveau painters 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists Académie Julian alumni