Karl Hagemeister

Place: Werder

Born: 1848

Death: 1933

Biography:

Karl Hagemeister was a German landscape painter born in Werder, Germany in 1848 and died in Werder, Germany in 1933. He was the son of a fruit grower and developed an early interest in nature from the forested, watery surroundings of his birthplace. He trained as a teacher in Köpenick, then went to teach elementary school in Berlin, where he caught the attention of landscape painter Ferdinand Bellermann. Bellermann convinced Hagemeister to give up his plans to become a drawing teacher and be an artist instead, helping him to obtain a position in the studios of Friedrich Preller. From 1871 to 1873, he received classically oriented training at Preller's Weimar Princely Free Drawing School, where he was introduced to Philipp Otto Runge's Farbenkugel and Goethe’s Theory of Colours. Beginning in 1873, he embarked on a long series of study trips, during which he became friends with Carl Schuch and Wilhelm Trübner. The three spent a year studying the Old Masters in the Netherlands, then Hagemeister went on to Italy, where he remained until 1876, when he returned to Werder. He is considered in Germany as one of the most important painters of the beginning of the 20th century and is part of the Berlin Secession movement.