Adolf Hölzel

Adolf Hölzel (13 May 1853 – 17 October 1934) was a German artist/painter. His style developed from Impressionism to expressive modernism.

Biography

He was born in Olomouc in Moravia, the son of the publisher Eduard Hölzel. In 1871 his family moved to Vienna, and from 1872 he studied painting at the Vienna Academy. He continued his studies in Munich at the Kunstakademie beginning in 1876. There he became acquainted with the painter Fritz von Uhde and painted in a style influenced by Impressionism.

Composition, German Stanp 2003, 150 years since the Birth of Adolf Hölzel

From 1888 to 1905 he worked in Dachau, where there was an artists' colony. Already during his time in Dachau his work began moving toward abstraction, reflecting his interest in such principles as the golden section and Goethe's Theory of Colors. He taught at the Stuttgart Academy, and painted—four years before Wassily Kandinsky—an abstract painting (Composition in Red, 1905). Among his students the so-called "Hölzel circle" developed, including Oskar Schlemmer, Willi Baumeister, Max Ackermann and Johannes Itten. In 1919 Adolf Hölzel left the Stuttgart Academy and went into retirement. He died in Stuttgart in 1934.

Publications

Adolf Hölzel. Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen. Exhib. March 21 - May 3, 1987.
Wolfgang Venzmer: Adolf Hölzel. Leben und Werk. Stuttgart 1982.

Works (selection)

Old Woman from Dachau in costume at the prayer house (oil 1890)
One spring afternoon in Dachau (oil 1890)
The Love Letter (oil 1890)
Young farmer couple at the Dachau lunch break (oil around 1895)
Peasant girl in the Dachau moss (oil 1899)
Winter in the Dachau moss (oil 1900)
Peat moss in the Dachau (oil 1904)
Dachau Moor (oil 1905)
High summer heat in the Dachau moss (oil 1905)
Dusk on the Amper (oil 1905)
Composition in Red (oil 1905)
Dachau Moss III (oil 1905)
Dachau clouds landscape (oil 1907)
Gravel pit (oil 1907)
Crucifix (Christ dying) in the St. Paul Church (Ulm) (East Face, 1910)
Coloured windows on Bahlsen's headquarters in Hanover (1918)

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