Willi Geiger (painter)

Willi Geiger ( born August 27, 1878 in Schönbrunn near Landshut, Lower Bavaria, † February 11, 1971 in Munich) was a German painter, graphic artist and Ex-libris.

As the son of a teacher Willi Geiger was born in 1878 in Landshut. 1898-99 he attended the Munich School of Applied Arts, then the Technical College, where he completed his state examination as a drawing teacher. Willi Geiger graduated in 1903 with Franz von Stuck and Peter Halm at the Munich Academy, including together with Hans Purrmann and Albert Weisgerber. Willi Geiger receives 1910 Villa Romana - price, because of its success as a graphic artist. He worked on etchings to works by Richard Dehmel, Frank Wedekind, inter alia,

By 1914, Geiger was living in Berlin and presented in the galleries of Cassirer and Gurtlitt from. Then he went back to Munich, where he became a professor at the School of Applied Arts. He copied paintings by the Spanish Goya, Velasquez and El Greco and turned to portraiture, the most conscious, the Greco - study reflected on the portrait of the composer Hans Pfitzner. Towards the end of the twenties, his work had reached those living spiritual universality, whose humanistic character is the measure of all creativity of rank.

After the seizure of power by the National Socialists Geiger was from government service and his teaching post at the Leipzig State Academy of Graphic Arts and Printing Arts (now the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig ) dismissed, where he taught since 1928. Retired, he lived in Feldwies am Chiemsee, fighting for the perfection of his painting. In 1946 Willi Geiger, the teaching, now at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, again. In 1948 he was made ​​an honorary citizen of Landshut. 1951 Willi Geiger received the Culture Prize of the city of Munich, 1958, the Merit Cross 1st class of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1963 Schwabing Art Prize and in 1969 the Bavarian Order of Merit.

Rupprecht Geiger (1908-2009) was his only child.

Writings

• Lecture on the state of art students at the present time. A lecture, marr on 27 November 1932 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, Leipzig 1932.

Known students

• Ernst Hassebrauk 1932 Leipzig
• Manfred Bluth 1950 Munich