Friedrich Wilhelm Kuhnert
Friedrich Wilhelm Kuhnert (September 18, 1865 – February 11, 1926) was a German painter, author and illustrator, who specialized in animal images.
Personal life
Kuhnert was born in Opole in 1865. In 1894, he married the 18-year-old Emilie Caroline Wilhelmine Ottilie Alvine Herdikerhoff. They had a daughter, Emilie. The couple divorced in 1909 while Emilie was a student in Ceylon. Kuhnert married for the second time to Gerda Jankowski in 1913. In 1925, on his 60th birthday, she died. Kuhnert died on February 11, 1926 during a recovery stay in Switzerland. His grave is on the Südwestkirchhof Stahnsdorf in Berlin.
Professional life
After end of his technical-commercial apprenticeship at the age of 17, Kuhnert was a scholarship student Royal Academic College of Fine Arts from 1883 to 1887. From his home in Berlin, he embarked on travels to Scandinavia, Egypt, East Africa and India to make landscape and animal studies. His favorite motif was the African lion. In 1901 Kuhnert was the illustrator of zoologist Johann Wilhelm Haacke's book Animal Life of the Earth. In 1903, he became the illustrator for the Cologne chocolate producers Ludwig Stollwerck.[1]
Contrary to the practice of his peers, Friedrich Wilhelm Kuhnert distinguished himself by sketching tropical animals not zoos but in the wild. He has made pictures by sketching, etching, watercolor, and oil painting. Kuhnert is considered one of the most important German animal painters of his time. Since he was only painter and illustrator, but not a hunter, he often took heavy effort in the wild to track down his subjects.
Books by Kuhnert
- Animal Portraiture (Text by Richard Lydekker). London 1912
- Im Lande meiner Modelle (In the Land of My Models). Leipzig 1918
- Meine Tiere: die Radierungen Wilhelm Kuhnerts (My Animals: The Etchings of Wilhelm Kuhnert). Berlin 1925
- Vollständiger Katalog der Originalradierungen des Künstlers (Full Catalog of Original Etchings by the Artist). Berlin 1927
Books about Kuhnert
- Angelika Grettmann-Werner: Wilhelm Kuhnert (1865-1926). Tierdarstellung zwischen Wissenschaft und Kunst. Hamburg 1981 ISBN 3-922732-09-7
- Hansjörg Werner: Wer war Wilhelm Kuhnert. Der grosse deutsche Tiermaler. ISBN 3-939119-09-1
References
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Friedrich Wilhelm Kuhnert. |
- Richard Lydekker's The Royal Natural History, with 72 colour plates and 1600 engravings by Kuhnert & others
- Diese Site ist vom Enkel Wilhelm Kuhnerts erstellt worden und zeigt einige seiner interessantesten Arbeiten
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