Art of the 20th Century
Franz Marc
Franz Marc
(b Munich, 8 Feb 1880; d nr Verdun, 4 March 1916).
German painter. He decided to become a painter in autumn 1900, after initially intending to study philosophy and theology. He began his training at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich under Gabriel von Hackl (1843–1926) and Wilhelm von Dietz (1839–1907) and worked in the style of Munich landscape painting. His early Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (1902; Munich, Lenbachhaus) reveals in its form and construction that he already possessed an astonishing mastery of traditional artistic means. From summer 1902 onwards, increasingly self-taught, he worked at Kochel in Upper Bavaria, often on the alpine slopes of the Staffelalm. In May 1903, thanks to his excellent command of French (his Huguenot mother came from Alsace), he accompanied a friend on a study trip to Paris. On his return to Munich he gave up his studies at the Akademie. In his studio in the Kaulbachstrasse he devoted himself primarily to illustrations of poems by Richard Dehmel, Carmen Sylva, Hans Bethge and others, which were published posthumously by Anette von Eckhardt in 1917 in Munich under the title Stella Peregrina.
