Wilhelm Schmurr, Bauern auf dem Feld, Oil on Cardboard, Düsseldorf Malkasten, Rhenish Secession

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Wilhelm Schmurr

Hagen 1878 - 1959 Düsseldorf

Peasants

Oil on cardboard

Signed lower left

Size: 41.5 x 34.5 cm

Frame: … Read more Wilhelm Schmurr

Hagen 1878 - 1959 Düsseldorf

Peasants

Oil on cardboard

Signed lower left

Size: 41.5 x 34.5 cm

Frame: 59 x 52 cm

Good original condition (see photos)

Authenticity will be confirmed in writing.

Wilhelm Schmurr was born on March 1, 1878, in Hagen, the son of Wilhelm Heinrich Schmurr. His mother, Julie Auguste, née Stüber, encouraged her son's desire to become a painter. After his father's early death, the family moved to Düsseldorf in 1892. Here he produced his first drawings. In 1894, he began his studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Peter Janssen, Arthur Kampf, and Eduard von Gebhardt (until 1904), and was later a master student of Claus-Meyer.

In 1904 and 1905, Wilhelm Schmurr received the Gold State Medal at exhibitions in Vienna and Salzburg and became a member of the newly founded Düsseldorf Art Association. Also in 1905, he and his wife Emmy moved to Paris for a year. In 1907, he received a small gold medal at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. In 1908, the first joint exhibition of the "White Nettle" exhibition club, which Schmurr had founded together with his fellow students Julius Bretz, Max Clarenbach, August Deusser, and Walter Ophey, took place at the Düsseldorf Art Gallery. He joined the Malkasten artists' association in Düsseldorf.

Schmurr received his first awards in Vienna and Salzburg, where his work "Beauty of Form" (now lost) and the portrait of the painter Werner Heuser were exhibited. In 1907, he was awarded the Prussian Gold Medal for the portrait of his classmate and lifelong friend Max Clarenbach.

In 1909, as a founding member of the "Sonderbund Westdeutscher Kunstfreunde und Künstler" (Special Association of West German Art Lovers and Artists), he participated in its exhibition in Düsseldorf, which also included works by Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh. The founding members of the Sonderbund broke away and formed the association "Die Friedfertigen" (The Peaceful Ones). He subsequently joined other organizations, including the "Rheinische Sezession" (Rhenish Secession), the "Westfälische Sezession" (Westphalian Secession), the "Westdeutscher Künstlerbund" (West German Artists' Association), and the "Düsseldorfer Künstlergruppe" (Düsseldorf Artists' Group), among others. He captured his experiences of the First World War in melancholic depictions of beggars and stark landscapes.

from 1927 to 1947, Schmurr was a professor at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. His students included Werner Persy, Karl Bruchhäuser, Albert Fürst, Antonius van der Pas, and Alois Stettner.


After the war, the farmers in the fields inspired him to create numerous scenes of simple life and various vegetable still lifes. As a member of the German Artists' Association, Schmurr personally participated in its annual exhibitions in Düsseldorf in 1956 and in Essen in 1958 – his participation in Wiesbaden in early summer 1959 was already a posthumous tribute to the artist, who had died in February of that year.

In 1954, Schmurr was awarded the Karl Ernst Osthaus Prize of the city of Hagen; in 1958, he received the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class, and was appointed an honorary member of the "Economic Association of Visual Artists in the Düsseldorf District" and the Malkasten Artists' Association.

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