Sophie Koner, née Schäffer (13 July 1855,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

- 1 June 1929,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

) was a German portrait painter.

Life and work

Her first painting lessons were in Paris, with

Carolus-Duran Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France. Biograph ...

. Back in Berlin, she took lessons from

Max Koner Max Johann Bernhard Koner (17 July 1854, Berlin – 7 July 1900, Berlin) was a German portraitist. Biography From 1873 to 1878, he studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts under Eduard Daege, Anton von Werner and others. He spent som ...

, who was very popular in high society as a portrait painter. She eventually became his private student. They were married in 1886. They painted several portraits of each other. Encouraged by Max, she exhibited one of him at the

Academy of Arts An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

in 1888. Between 1893 and 1920, she participated in numerous exhibitions there. In 1896, she was awarded a gold medal at the

Große Berliner Kunstausstellung Große Berliner Kunstausstellung (Great Berlin Art Exhibition), abbreviated GroBeKa or GBK, was an annual art exhibition that existed from 1893 to 1969 with intermittent breaks. In 1917 and 1918, during World War I, it was not held in Berlin bu ...

. By the 1890s, Max was receiving so many commissions for portraits that she became discreetly employed in finishing them; adding some of the clothing and backgrounds. Following his sudden death at the age of forty-six, she began to specialize in portraits of children, to express her own personal talents. She was adept at entertaining small children while they were posing, so that even large families could be portrayed with little fuss. Her work also includes a handful of landscapes. She died at the age of seventy-three, and was interred next to Max at the in the

Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...

district. Neither grave has been preserved.Hans-Jürgen Mende: ''Lexikon Berliner Begräbnisstätten''. Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, pg.214

Selected paintings

File:Sophie Koner - Maria Wilhelmine Klemperer with her son Otto Ernst Heinrich Klemperer, 1901.jpg, Maria Klemperer with her son,

Otto Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fro ...

File:Sophie Koner - Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia with dog.png, Princess Victoria Luise of Prussia File:Sophie Koner - Kinderporträt, 1905.jpg, A Little Child File:Sophie Koner - Portrait eines Mädchens.jpg, Portrait of a Girl File:Max Koner - Reichsgräfin Gabriele von Moltke, 1901.jpg, Countess Gabriele von Moltke

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koner, Sophie 1855 births 1929 deaths 19th-century German painters German portrait painters German women painters Painters from London 20th-century German painters 20th-century women painters

Life and work

Selected paintings

References

Further reading

External links