Wilhelm Hempfing, Cherry Blossoms on Bergstraße, 1890s, Oil Painting on Canvas, Framed

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Wilhelm Hempfing

Schönau 1886 - 1948 Karlsruhe

Flowering Cherry Tree, Bergstraße

Oil on canvas
Signed lower left, titled on the … Read more Wilhelm Hempfing

Schönau 1886 - 1948 Karlsruhe

Flowering Cherry Tree, Bergstraße

Oil on canvas
Signed lower left, titled on the stretcher
Size: 40 x 50 cm
Frame: 48.5 x 58.5 cm
Good original condition (see photos)
Viewing and collection possible by prior arrangement
Authenticity will be confirmed in writing.

After attending the Heidelberg Oberrealschule (a type of secondary school), where Wilhelm Hempfing excelled only in drawing, he began training as a drawing teacher at the Grand Ducal Baden School of Applied Arts in Karlsruhe in 1904 at the request of his father, a factory director. Among other classes, he attended drawing lessons with August Groh and modeling classes with Fridolin Dietsche and Otto Feist. In the spring of 1907, he passed his teaching examination and entered the teaching profession, which initially took him to Tauberbischofsheim, then to Bühl, and finally to Ettlingen. Since teaching did not satisfy him, he pursued further art studies at the Karlsruhe Academy from the autumn of 1908 to 1913. Friedrich Fehr, whose master student he soon became, had a lasting influence on the young Hempfing, both in his painting technique and color palette, as well as in his future subject matter: portraiture, figure painting, and landscape. In addition, the aspiring artist also learned etching from Walter Conz. However, printmaking would play only a minor role in his oeuvre.

from 1912 onward, Hempfing participated not only in group exhibitions in Karlsruhe and Baden, but also in major art exhibitions in Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. The year he joined the conservative artists' association Zunft zur Arche (Guild of the Ark), founded by Franz Sales Meyer in 1889 and which felt disadvantaged by the rise of New Objectivity in the 1920s, is unknown.

Even before the First World War, in which Hempfing initially served with Train Battalion 14 and the 75th Reserve Division in the East and, from 1917, as a lieutenant and commander of a munitions column in the West, he undertook his first study trips to the Netherlands (1910), the lakes of northern Italy (1911), and to Paris and Brittany (1913). After 1919, he continued his travels, incorporating the impressions from these experiences into his work. He repeatedly stayed at Lake Überlingen, on the Schleswig-Holstein coast, and on the island of Sylt. In 1925 he visited French-speaking Switzerland, in 1926 Spain and Morocco, in 1927 Italy, in 1928 Croatia, and in 1930 the islands of Hiddensee and Rügen.

While Hempfing earned his living in the 1920s painting portraits of men, women, and children, his primary focus was on the female nude in interior and landscape settings. His landscapes, and especially his depictions of girlish women standing, lying down, or sitting, displaying their feminine charms, were very well received. This piece has an attribution mark,
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