Gustav Graef

Gustav Graef ( born December 14, 1821 in Königsberg, † January 6, 1895 in Berlin) was a German historical and portrait painter.

Life and work

In Konigsberg ( Prussia) Gustav Graef was since 1842 an enthusiastic member of the country team Corp. Normannia. From that time many of lithographs ( korporierten ) Konigsberg students originate. As a historical and portrait painter, he was trained in Dusseldorf by Theodor Hildebrandt and Wilhelm von Schadow at the Royal Academy. He made study trips to Antwerp, Paris, Munich and Italy. After his return to Königsberg, he married the painter and lithographer Franziska Liebreich (1824-1893), who came from a major Jewish family and which he had met as a student of his class characters at Konigsberg. The marriage produced two sons and a daughter were born. The son Botho Graef (1857-1917)) was a noted art historian, the daughter married the painter Reinhold Lepsius and became as Sabine Lepsius (1864-1942) a well-known painter who had close contact with the George circle.

Graef in 1849 was awarded the contract to implement the frescoes Reconciliation Wittekinds with Charlemagne, designed by Wilhelm von Kaulbach in Südkuppelsaal the Berlin Neues Museum. Thus also the family's move from Königsberg to Berlin was connected. This was followed by a further big order the execution of four Hercules deeds for the porch of the Altes Museum in Berlin. Being at that time known painting Ferdinande Schmettau sacrifices her golden hair on the altar of the fatherland in 1813, which refers to the wars against Napoleon, Emperor Wilhelm I. later the National Gallery. The topic at hand Graef in other of his paintings, including patriotism in 1813 (98 x 125 cm ), which have the Staatliche Museen, Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. As of 1862, Graef turned to mainly idealized female portraits, with whom he had great commercial success. In 1868, he received an order to the three major historical compositions Solon, Phidias and Demosthenes for the auditorium of the University of Königsberg. In 1880 he became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, Berlin, Department for the Fine Arts. In the middle of this successful artistic work out Graef was arrested in March 1885 and charged in a much-publicized in Berlin society process, but acquitted of charges of perjury and abuse of a minor model. The social rank of the family who had previously performed the hospitable house of a master painter, suffered through the process much damage. One of his pupils, he taught in his studio at the Palais Raczyński, Mathilde block .. was

Works in museums (selection)

• National Gallery, Berlin: Ferdinande Schmettau sacrifices her golden hair on the altar of the fatherland in 1813, oil on canvas 125 × 98 cm
• East German Gallery, Regensburg: The extract of the East Prussian Landwehr into the field in 1813 after their consecration in the Church, 1860/61, oil on canvas, 101 × 131.5 cm
• National Portrait Gallery, London: Sir Francis Galton, 1882, oil on wood, 70 × 54cm