41 Facts About Oswald Achenbach

Hermann Achenbach was employed in a series of jobs, including beer and vinegar brewer, guesthouse owner, and bookkeeper.

In 1835, at the age of eight, Oswald Achenbach was enrolled in the elementary class of the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.

Oswald Achenbach was a student in the elementary class, where he was instructed in the basics of drawing, and then spent a year in the architecture class.

In 1843, the sixteen-year-old Oswald Achenbach began a journey of several months through Upper Bavaria and North Tyrol during which he continued his nature studies.

Oswald Achenbach's earliest known works in oil come from this period.

Oswald Achenbach undertook a journey with his friend and later student Albert Flamm to northern Italy.

The paintings that Oswald Achenbach completed from this period predominantly consist of Italian landscape motifs.

Oswald Achenbach was one of the artists who opposed the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf and became an early member of two Dusseldorf associations, which many like-minded artists had joined.

At many events, Oswald Achenbach took an active part, directing, playing or staging plays.

Oswald Achenbach was particularly attached to "Malkasten" and remained connected with it until the end of his life.

Oswald Achenbach's surviving studies show that he was not overly interested in details but concentrated on the characteristic colors and forms and the distribution of light and shadow.

Oswald Achenbach focused on his color impressions, setting layers of paint in different thicknesses over one another to find the desired tone.

On 3 May 1851, Oswald Achenbach married Julie Arnz, to whom he had been engaged since 1848.

Oswald Achenbach was the daughter of a Dusseldorf publisher, who published, among other periodicals, the Dusseldorf Monathefte and the Dusseldorf Monatsalbum.

Oswald Achenbach contributed to both of these with lithographs of his paintings, sketches, and other works.

In parts of some paintings, Oswald Achenbach increasingly dispensed with detailed figures.

In March 1863, Oswald Achenbach became the Professor for Landscape Painting at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.

The appointment of Oswald Achenbach to a position was a conscious political decision reflecting the new direction of the Dusseldorf Academy, to bring about a conciliation with the independent artists.

Such recognition for artists during this period was not uncommon, but they contributed significantly to Oswald Achenbach's fame, confirmed his recognition as an artist and were important for his commercial success.

Oswald Achenbach followed Hans Gude as professor of landscape painting at the academy.

In parts of some paintings, Oswald Achenbach increasingly dispensed with detailed figures.

Oswald Achenbach gave up his professorship at the Institute in 1872.

Oswald Achenbach had submitted his resignation once before, in 1869 but withdrew it.

Oswald Achenbach had felt that his teaching constrained his own artistic work.

Oswald Achenbach had planned a trip in 1897 to Florence, but canceled it due to illness.

In 1897 Oswald Achenbach was made an honorary citizen of Dusseldorf in recognition of his over 50 years of engagement in various Dusseldorf institutions and associations.

Oswald Achenbach used the texture of the canvas as a design element.

Oswald Achenbach died in Dusseldorf on 1 February 1905, one day before his 78th birthday.

Oswald Achenbach was buried in the North Cemetery in Dusseldorf.

However, as early as 1876, at the annual exhibition in the Vienna Kunstlerhaus Oswald Achenbach showed an oil study and showed his works at the "Sketches and Studies Exhibition" at the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf Exponate in 1889.

Oswald Achenbach preferred to work on the underpainting, which developed the framework of the later painting, rather than on the detailed forms.

Andreas was a student of Schirmer's and from certain letters it can be concluded that from at least the 1840s Oswald Achenbach was receiving advice from Andreas about technique and was therefore indirectly influenced by Schirmer's views on painting.

At the heights of their careers, Oswald Achenbach concentrated on depictions of Italian landscapes while Andreas looked to marine scenes.

Oswald Achenbach probably knew Turner's paintings primarily from the steel engraving prints published in the art books of the time.

For Turner, as with Oswald Achenbach, light played an important role.

Oswald Achenbach was never as radical as Turner but especially in his paintings after 1860 uses a similar painterly style in the depiction of objects.

Until the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, Oswald Achenbach was in close contact with the Paris art scene.

At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855 when Oswald Achenbach's paintings were shown, there were eleven paintings by Courbet on display.

Courbet's radical Realism gained a lot of attention and it is very likely that Oswald Achenbach saw the exhibition of the Frankfurt Art Association from spring 1858 to February 1859 that showed works by Courbet and the first big Courbet retrospective that ran parallel to the International Exposition of 1867.

However, while Courbet used a more even surface, Oswald Achenbach's painting was more relief-like.

Oswald Achenbach's works are in the collections of many museums, mainly in Germany but across Europe and America including the Musee d'Orsay and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.