August Leu

A Sunny day on a Norwegian Fjord by August Leu (1862)

August Wilhelm Leu (24 March 1818 – 20 July 1897) was a German landscape painter of the Romantic school. Most of his pictures are large-format and depict scenes in Norway and the Alps.

Biography

Leu was born in Münster. He was a pupil of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, a landscape painter of the Düsseldorf school.[1][2]

Leu travelled in Norway in 1843 and 1847, and later travelled widely in the Alps.[2] His Norwegian paintings raised awareness in Germany of that country's scenery.[1] He lived for a time in Brussels, then returned to Düsseldorf;[2] in 1855 he received an honourable mention at the Paris Exposition.[3] In 1882 he moved to Berlin,[2] where he became a royal professor and a member of the Academy of Art;[4] he was also a member of the Vienna, Amsterdam and Brussels Academies.[5][6] He received several gold medals in Berlin and was awarded the Belgian Order of Leopold.[5]

His son, also named August Leu (1852–76) studied under him and was a landscape and animal painter.[1] Leu died in Seelisberg, Switzerland.

Selected works

  • Hardangerfjord im Sonnenlicht (1849), Kunstverein Bremen (1849), now Private Collection in Norway
  • Norwegian Landscape with Waterfall (1849)
  • Sognefjord (1849)
  • Hohe Göll at Berchtesgaden (1859)
  • Oeschinen Lake (1876)
  • Queen Joanne's Palace at Naples (1886)
  • Pool at Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains (1888)
  • On the Engstlenalp (1893)
  • Königsee and Watzmann
  • Norwegian High Plateau
  • Sunset on the Coast at Sorrento
  • Alpine Peak (1896)
    Alpine Peak (1896)
  • View of the Eiger and the Mönch from the Wengerenalp (1865)
    View of the Eiger and the Mönch from the Wengerenalp (1865)
  • Fjord Landscape with Glacier and Reindeer (1896)
    Fjord Landscape with Glacier and Reindeer (1896)
  • Norwegian Fjord Landscape (1849)
    Norwegian Fjord Landscape (1849)
  • Matterhorn
    Matterhorn

References

  1. ^ a b c A. Hk., "Leu, August Wilhelm", Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, 2nd ed. (1915–30), Volume XV: Kvadratrod – Ludmila, p. 724, online at Project Runeberg (in Danish).
  2. ^ a b c d Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 6th ed. (1902–13), Volume 12: L – Lyra, pp. 456–57 (in German).
  3. ^ Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 6 (1856) p. 212 (in German).
  4. ^ Catalogue of the Art Department of the Eighth Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, 1880, Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1880, OCLC 229799766, p. 5.
  5. ^ a b "Leu, August (Wilhelm)", Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, ed. John Denison Champlin, Jr. and Charles C. Perkins, (1913 ed.), New York: Scribner's, OCLC 269766361, Volume 3, p. 72.
  6. ^ Clara Erskine Clement Waters and Laurence Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works: A Handbook Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches, 5th ed. Boston: Osgood, 1889, OCLC 78151561, p. 63.