ANTON ALEXANDER VON WERNER PAINTINGS FOR SALE & BIOGRAPHY
ANTON ALEXANDER VON WERNER
German, 1843–1915
BIOGRAPHY
The artist, whose family was ennobled in 1701 and came from East Prussia, was born in Frankfurt. He studied with Adolf Schrödter at the Karlsruhe Academy. Schrödter’s style influenced Werner’s early illustrative work for Joseph Scheffel’s popular writings and Scheffel became a life-long friend and supporter of the painter. Werner visited Paris in the mid-1860s where the history paintings of Ingres, Meissonier and Delacroix made a lasting impression. In 1871, he was summoned to the Prussian headquarters in Versailles and commissioned to immortalize the proclamation of the German Empire at the Hall of Mirrors. Werner went on to become one of the most famous painters in Germany during the Wilhelminian period due to his frequent portrayal of political and military events. He was appointed a professor at the Berlin Academy in 1873, and two years later became its director, winning medals there in 1874 and 1880. In 1909, he succeeded Hugo von Tschudi as director of the National Gallery of Berlin. The American painter and sculptor Emil Fuchs was one of Werner’s students at the Prussian Academy of Arts.
Museum Collections:
National Gallery, Berlin
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Kunsthalle, Hamburg
StaatlicheKunsthalle, Karlsruhe
Kunstverein, Hannover
Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig
Kunsthalle, Mainz
Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart
National Museum, Wroclaw
