Robert Koehler

Life

Koehler emigrated during his childhood with his parents to Milwaukee in the United States. After his education at the German - English Academy by Peter Engelmann in Milwaukee, today's University School of Milwaukee, he trained as a lithographer and then worked in Pittsburgh and New York City. In 1873 he moved to Munich to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. As his financial resources were exhausted in 1875, he returned temporarily to the United States. Four years later he moved again to Munich, where he was a student in the painting classes of Ludwig von Löfftz and Franz Defregger. In 1888 he began to work for a private art school in Munich. 1892 Koehler returned back to New York and worked as a portrait artist. A year later, he took over from Douglas people, the Office of the Director of the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. There he worked as a painter, art teacher and arranged exhibitions, until he died of a heart attack at the age of 66 years.

His most famous painting " The Strike " (1886 ), can be seen in the German Historical Museum in Berlin. His painting " The Socialist " from 1885 is considered the first portrait of a socialist politician. The pictures Head of an Old Woman from 1881, Rainy Evening on Hennepin Avenue (1902 ) and Portrait of Alvina Roosen (1906 ) were exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.