Hans Thoma, Stooped Man with Walking Stick and Cigarette, 1890s, Gouache

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Hans Thoma (1839 Bernau - 1924 Karlsruhe), Stooped Old Man with Walking Stick and Cigarette, circa 1900. Watercolor and pastel … Read more Hans Thoma (1839 Bernau - 1924 Karlsruhe), Stooped Old Man with Walking Stick and Cigarette, circa 1900. Watercolor and pastel on paper, mounted on cardboard, 29.5 cm x 23.5 cm (sheet size), 45 cm x 38 cm (frame), monogrammed “HTh” lower left, framed behind glass.
- Slightly rubbed in places, overall in very good condition, frame with newly glued joint.

- The sum of life -

Against a purple background, an old man painted in earthy colors stands out, looking down with his eyes almost closed. His face is heavily shadowed and furrowed. The earthy colors make it look like the landscape of life, while the cigarette burned down to a stub makes it clear that life has been lived almost to the full. The old man seems to be moving forward toward the end, pausing as he does so, leaning on his walking stick. Within him is gathered the life he has lived, which was above all hardship, as evidenced by his stooped posture, his rough hands, and above all his furrowed face. A hardship that will lead to the redemption of eternal rest. But the hardship was by no means in vain. Having repeatedly taken on the burden of life gives the man the dignity of having steadfastly mastered the pilgrimage of life to the end. This dignity of a hard-working life is expressed in color, with the man's uniform yellowish tone making him stand out from the purple background, while the colorfulness of the background creates a mysterious, fluctuating, auratic effect. An unheroic hero with whom Hans Thoma identifies, as evidenced by the placement of the monogram under the hands. After all, Thoma also created everything he created with his hands.




About the artist


After failing to complete his apprenticeship as a lithographer, painter and clockmaker, Hans Thoma trained as an autodidact painter. In 1859 he won a scholarship to the Karlsruhe Art School, where he became a student of Wilhelm Schirmer and Ludwig Des Coudres. After graduating in 1866, Thoma spent time in Basel and Düsseldorf. He met Otto Scholderer, with whom he traveled to Paris in 1868. There he was impressed by the art of Gustave Courbet and the Barbizon School. After his works were rejected by the Karlsruhe Kunstverein, Thoma moved to Munich in 1870, where he was close to the Leibl circle. Wilhelm Trüber worked for a time in Thoma's studio in Munich. In 1874 he made the first of a series of trips to Italy with the painter Albert Lang, where he met Hans von Marées and Adolph von Hildebrand and became friends with Arnold Böcklin, whose art made a lasting impression on Thoma. On his return to Munich, Thoma became a student of Cella Berteneder, whom he married in 1877.
Thoma traveled to England in 1879 at the invitation of art collector Charles Minoprio. Over the years, Minoprio acquired more than 60 oil paintings by Thoma and organized the first exhibition of his art abroad in Liverpool in 1884. Thoma had lived in Frankfurt since 1878. The following year, the Frankfurter Kunstverein organized the first solo exhibition of his work. After a trip to the Netherlands, Thoma moved to Kronberg im Taunus in 1899, where the Kronberg painters' colony was based. That same year he was appointed professor at the Karlsruhe Art School and director of the Karlsruhe Kunsthalle. In 1901, together with Wilhelm Süs, Hans Thoma founded the Grand Ducal Majolica Manufactory in Karlsruhe, for which he supplied designs from then on.
Thoma was now at the height of his artistic fame. The 1909 edition of Meyer's Großes Konversations-Lexikon noted that Thoma had become one of the German people's favorite painters. On the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1919, Ernst Oppler and Lovis Corinth organized a large celebration. After Thoma's death, the Berlin National Gallery dedicated a major exhibition to him in 1922, and the Basel Kunsthalle in 1924. See less