Lothar von Seebach

Baron Lothar von Seebach (or Lothaire de Seebach; 26 March 1853, Fessenbach, now part of Offenburg - 23 September 1930, Strasbourg) was an Alsatian painter, designer, watercolorist and engraver.

Lothar von Seebach (1880)

Biography

He was raised in Mannheim, where his father was a garrison officer. In 1875, after completing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe under Ferdinand Keller, he rejoined his family in Strasbourg, where they had lived since the end of the Franco-Prussian War.[1] Like many other painters before him, he set up his studio in the 14th Century Tour de l'Hôpital. Over the next twenty-five years, he made several study trips to England, Berlin and Paris, where he was influenced by the Fauvists. A fiercely independent man who led a simple life, he turned down offers of professorships in Karlsruhe and Strasbourg.[1]

He became a French citizen after World War I, but left Alsace in 1921 as the result of some professional conflicts.[1] He lived briefly at Lake Constance and Frankfurt, then went back to Fessenbach to live with his brother. Ultimately, he returned to Strasbourg where he became renowned for his portrayals of the Old City and its inhabitants.

He was a member of the artistic community known as the "Cercle de Saint-Léonard", named after a village in the commune of Bœrsch in the Bas-Rhin; a group that included Benoît Hartmann, Léon Hornecker, Anselme Laugel, Alfred Marzolff, Georges Ritleng, Joseph Sattler, Émile Schneider, Léo Schnug and Charles Spindler. A street in Robertsau, a suburb to the north of Strasbourg, has been named for him.[2]

Selected paintings
  • La Rue de la Douane in the Rain (1895)
  • "Plein Air", a Woman on Her Balcony (1905)
  • Portrait of the poet Elsa Koeberlé; the daughter of Eugène Koeberlé (1898)
  • Adam and Eve (c. 1910)
  • Portrait of Hans Pfitzner (1910)
  • Young woman by a river (1920)

References
  1. Biography @ Amis du Léonardsau et du Cercle de Saint-Léonard
  2. « Un nom, une rue : Lothaire de Seebach, un grand peintre strasbourgeois », Dernières nouvelles d'Alsace, 22 October 2008

Further reading
  • Lothar von Seebach 1853-1930, B. et K. Offsetdruck, Ottersweier, 1996, 127 p. ISBN 3-00-000708-3 (exhibition at Gengenbach in 1996)
  • Hélène Braeuner (et al.), Les peintres et l'Alsace : autour de l'Impressionnisme, La Renaissance du Livre, Tournai, 2003, 190 p. ISBN 2-8046-0741-0
  • Nicolas Mengus, Lothar von Seebach, in Nouveau dictionnaire de biographie alsacienne, Fédération des sociétés d'histoire et d'archéologie d'Alsace, Strasbourg, 2000, vol. 35, p. 3611-3612
  • Lothaire de Seebach, in Strasbourg 1900 : naissance d'une capitale (seminar, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, 1–4 December 1999), Somogy, Paris ; Musées de Strasbourg, 2000, p. 115 ISBN 2-85056-387-0
  • Gilles Pudlowski, Lothar von Seebach, in Dictionnaire amoureux de l'Alsace, Plon, Paris, 2010 p. 632-635 ISBN 978-2-259-20947-2
  • Brigitte Wilke, Les travaux et les jours : Lothar von Seebach, peintre de l'Alsace 1900, Nuée bleue, Strasbourg, 2003, 112 p. ISBN 2-7165-0607-8
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