Willy Gretor, born Vilhelm Rudolf Julius Petersen (16 July 1868, in Wundlacken Castle, near

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was name ...

– 31 July 1923, in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

) was a Danish painter and art dealer, who spent most of his life in Germany and Paris.

Life and work

His father, Hans Christian Petersen, was a merchant from Flensburg. He had his first art lessons in Copenhagen, from and

Bertha Wegmann Bertha Wegmann (1847–1926) was a Danish portrait painter of German ancestry. She was the first woman to hold a chair at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Life When Bertha Wegmann was five years old, her family moved to Copenhagen, where her ...

, at the

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts ( da, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi - Billedkunst Skolerne) has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years, playing its part in the development of the art of Denmark. History The Royal Dan ...

. In 1889, he went to

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

. There, he became acquainted with members of the "Ibsenklub" (named after the playwright, Henrik Ibsen); a group of liberal young people who met to exchange ideas, about modern literature that had an aura of "mystery and scandal". Based on his correspondence, this led to a brief affair with , who later became an archaeologist, and an equally brief engagement to one of her cousins. This network of relationships also led to a group trip to Paris, during which he began an affair with the painter, Maria Schorer. For unknown reasons, they decided to take assumed names for their artworks. Maria became

Maria Slavona Maria Slavona, born Marie Dorette Caroline Schorer (14 March 1865, Lübeck - 10 May 1931, Berlin) was a German impressionist painter. Life Her father, , was a pharmacist and politician who was known for his campaign to improve the quality o ...

, and he chose the name Willy Gretor. The actress known as was born from this liaison. From 1890 to 1891, he held several exhibitions in Paris, which led him to his next affair, with the painter, . This time, however, the affair became marriage. One of their children was the journalist, . He then largely gave up painting to work as an art dealer in England, France and Spain. In that capacity, he was involved as a middleman in the controversial sale of the wax bust, ''

Flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...

'', which was purchased by the

Bode Museum The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of Germ ...

in Berlin, from the English art dealer Murray Marks (1840-1918), in the belief that it was by

Da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on h ...

. Its true authorship has yet to be established to everyone's satisfaction. For a short time,

Frank Wedekind Benjamin Franklin Wedekind (July 24, 1864 – March 9, 1918) was a German playwright. His work, which often criticizes bourgeois attitudes (particularly towards sex), is considered to anticipate expressionism and was influential in the de ...

was Gretor's secretary. It is generally assumed that Gretor served as the prototype for the title character in Wedekind's play, ''The Marquis of Keith''.Fritz Strich (Ed.): ''Frank Wedekind. Gesammelte Briefe.'', Georg Müller, 1924, pp.354 f.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gretor, Willy 1868 births 1923 deaths Danish painters Art dealers Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts alumni Artists from Königsberg

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links