Alfred Schmidt (1876 ​​​​- 1956) – Portrait Of The Concert Singer Caroline Naase

Alfred Schmidt (1876 ​​​​- 1956) – Portrait of the concert singer Caroline Naase

oil on canvas circa 1920
60 x 47 cm – without frame
78 x 65 cm – frame included

Alfred Schmidt
1876 ​​​​Dresden – 1956 Graefelfing

An impressionist at the Chiemsee

Feminine creatures walking in the shimmering air […]”(1), who find their pleasure in the warm golden tones of summer and the shimmering silver-gray water surface of the lake, correspond to the characteristic motif of Schmidt's native . The impressionist Christian Landenberger (1862-1927) inevitably comes to mind, with whom Schmidt was a friend and who painted canvas on canvas at Lake Ammersee, but “softer, gentler and more narrative, because [Schmidt] often expands on the fact that nature and the human body come together to create a small gender idyll”

His art is a commitment to plein air painting. Openly shows the impressionistic momentum of him. The originally anecdotal aspects of his painting, which he had experienced at the Karlsruhe Academy from 1886 to 1893, he gradually put aside both through the one-year study stay in Paris and Brittany in 1889 and through the influence of Landenberger and of Swabian landscape painting. From this point on, the artistic development is barely noticeable. He had found his own personal style and stuck to it.

At the end of 1899, Schmidt arrived in the Swabian capital from Karlsruhe in the entourage of Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth (1855-1922), who was appointed to the Stuttgart Academy with Carlos Grethe (1864-1913) and Robert Poetzelberger (1856-1930 ) . With these he founded the Stuttgart Artists' Association there, of which he was a member for 40 years, and also his own painting school for women until he was appointed full professor at the State Academy of Art in 1918. In the summer months , Schmidt was drawn to the country. First he painted in Diessen am Ammersee. From 1920 he discovered Lake Chiemsee and settled on a farm in Gollenshausen. In the latter stages of his life, the Bavarian sea advanced to become the focus of his artistic endeavours. He was one of the first to own an outboard motor, which he used to rumble across the lake. He was also known as “Violet Schmidt” because he so aptly expressed his sense of the discoloration of the landscape in a bluish-purple hue. In this way, the summer air, the reflections of the water, the cloudy sky and the figurative motif have merged in a harmonious impressionistic dance of colors to create a concentrated atmosphere that the Chiemsee is able to stage in so many ways.