'Nuns Gathering Lilies' by Friedrich Fehr, 1918; Large Munich School Figural, Karlsruhe, Catholic Convent

Description

Signed lower left, 'Friedrich Fehr' (German, inscribed 'Karlsruhe' and dated '1918'.

Friedrich Fehr first attended at the Academy of Fine … more Signed lower left, 'Friedrich Fehr' (German, inscribed 'Karlsruhe' and dated '1918'.

Friedrich Fehr first attended at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Strahuber, Benczur and Lofftz (1878-84) and was the recipient of the Martin von Wagner Foundation scholarship, which enabled him to move to Italy where he lived and studied from 1885 and 1890, broadening both his understanding of anatomy and his knowledge of neo-classical art.

In 1890, Fehr returned to Germany, settling in Munich where he founded a private painting school with Ludwig Schmid-Reutte and Paul Nauen. Graduates of this school included numerous well known artists including Emil Nolde, Clara Rilke-Westhoff and Hans Meyer-Kassel. Fehr became an increasingly influential teacher including, beginning 1897, at the Karlsruhe Academy. As a result of his grounding in anatomy, he also taught the live drawing class of the Munich Artists' Association and, in the same year, was appointed to a professorship at the Karlsruhe Academy, where he continued to lead the painting department until its dissolution in 1923. During this period, he included Wilhelm Hempfing, Margarethe von Reinken and Alexander Kanoldt among his students. From 1904 to 1919, he also headed the class for figurative painting at the Karlsruhe School of Painting.
Over the course of a distinguished career, Fehr exhibited widely and with success and his works may now be found in the permanent collections of national museums including the Nationalgalerie in Munich and the Karlsruhe Museum. The sculptors Hermann Billing and Hermann Binz immortalized the figure of Friedrich Fehr in the fountain on Karlsruhe's Stephanplatz.

Reference:
E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Vol. 5, p. 354;
Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zu Gengenwart, Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 11/12, p. 345; et al. less