Reinhold Lepsius (14 June 1857 – 16 March 1922) was a German painter, especially of portraits, and

graphic art A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface.

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, the son of Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884), professor at the Frederick William University and founder of the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

, and his wife Elisabeth Klein (1828–1899), daughter of the composer Bernhard Klein and great-granddaughter of

Friedrich Nicolai Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (18 March 1733 – 11 January 1811) was a German writer and bookseller. Life Nicolai was born in Berlin, where his father, Christoph Gottlieb Nicolai (d. 1752), was the founder of the bookseller ''Nicolaisch ...

. His younger brother

Johannes Lepsius Johannes Lepsius (15 December 1858, Potsdam, Germany – 3 February 1926, Meran, Italy) was a German Protestant missionary, Orientalist, and humanist with a special interest in trying to prevent the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. He ini ...

became a Protestant theologian, humanist and orientalist. Stefan George by Reinhold Lepsius

Reinhold Lepsius was stylistically affiliated with the

Berlin Secession The Berlin Secession was an art movement established in Germany on May 2, 1898. Formed in reaction to the Association of Berlin Artists, and the restrictions on contemporary art imposed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, 65 artists "seceded," demonstrating ag ...

school and to some degree with German

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 ...

. He was one of the first portraitists to paint after photographs. Lepsius became known for his portraits of the archaeologist

Ernst Curtius Ernst Curtius (; 2 September 181411 July 1896) was a German archaeologist, historian and museum director. Biography He was born in Lübeck. On completing his university studies he was chosen by C. A. Brandis to accompany him on a journey to ...

, the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, and the poet

Stefan George Stefan Anton George (; 12 July 18684 December 1933) was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literary ...

who organized literary soirées at his house in Westend. He was elected a member of the

Prussian Academy of Arts The Prussian Academy of Arts (German: ''Preußische Akademie der Künste'') was a state arts academy first established in Berlin, Brandenburg, in 1694/1696 by prince-elector Frederick III, in personal union Duke Frederick I of Prussia, and late ...

in 1916 and also joined the '' Deutscher Künstlerbund'' (Association of German Artists). He was married to the painter Sabine Lepsius, née Graef (1864–1942), sister of the art historian Botho Graef. The couple had a son, Stefan, born in 1897 and named after Stefan George. He was killed in World War I in early April 1917. Lepsius died in Berlin five years later, aged 64. Numerous of his portraits commissioned by

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

clients have come to be regarded as lost after Nazi looting.

Literature

* Annette Dorgerloh: ''Das Künstlerehepaar Lepsius. Zur Berliner Porträtmalerei um 1900'', Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2003 () * Sabine Lepsius: ''Stefan George. Geschichte einer Freundschaft.'' Verlag Die Runde, Berlin 1935. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lepsius, Reinhold 1857 births 1922 deaths 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists German male painters 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists Artists from Berlin 20th-century German printmakers