Hans Unger
Hans Unger was a German painter who was, during his lifetime, a highly respected Art Nouveau artist. His popularity did not survive the change in the cultural climate in Germany after World War I, however, and after his death he was soon forgotten. However, in the 1980s interest in his work revived, and a grand retrospective exhibition in 1997 in the City Museum in Freital, Germany, duly restored his reputation as one of the masters of the Dresden art scene around 1910.
Trademark and artistic influences
Unger was a portraitist and a landscape painter but his reputation stems from his paintings, most of them nearly life-size, of "beautiful women dreaming of Arcadia". In fact, it was always the same woman being portrayed: his wife in real life, his muse. Later, his daughter Maja came to share her mother's privileged position. The background to his "Arcadian woman" was quite often a pastoral landscape with high cypresses, a garden or a seaside scene.In his work he was influenced by some important 19th-century and contemporary artists, among who were: Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Josephin Péladan, Fernand Khnopff, William Strang and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Other important influences were Edward Burne-Jones, Arnold Böcklin and Max Klinger.
Most important works (and first exhibition)
- Estey Orgeln
- Die Muse, International Art Exhibition Dresden, 1897
- Das Welken, 1902
- Mutter und Kind, King Albert Museum, Chemnitz, 1912
- Venezianerin, Galerie Arnold, Dresden, 1916
Early life
From 1893 to 1895 he studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where his teachers were Friedrich Preller the Younger and Hermann Prell. Unger can be seen as a representative of the Dresdener Jugendstil movement, among whose members were also Sascha Schneider, Selmar Werner and Oskar Zwintscher. In 1894 he spent summer on the island Bornholm where he made a series of watercolors. In 1896 he designed a poster for the Dresden-based organ manufacturing company Estey, which made him internationally famous and launched his career. In all, he published about a dozen posters that feature for the first time his trademark of the beautiful but dreamlike and almost sleepwalking woman, a motif that was so prominent in much Art Nouveau painting.
Early career
In 1897 his painting Die Muse was immediately bought by the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. From October 1897 to March 1898 he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris where his teachers were Fleury and Lefebvre. Another boost to his career was the commission to design the scenic curtain for the newly built Dresdener Centraltheater, in 1899. Unfortunately the building was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden by the Allied forces in February 1945.In 1899 he also took part in the German Art Exhibition in Dresden where he had his own room, decorated with lilac walls and a black wooden rim. Among the works displayed was a Selbstbildnis im Sweater, and Abschied, a landscape.
In 1902 he became a member of the newly established German Artists' Union and travelled to the North Sea, the Baltic, Italy and Egypt, where he made lots of watercolors and pastel paintings. Unger was a passionate traveler to the South all his life and the powerful colors in his work reflect this. A testimony to this trait is found in the book Reisebilder aus dem Süden mentioned in the bibliography.
In 1905 Unger designed a mosaic for the tower of the Ernemann Reisekamera factory in Dresden, portraying a Lichtgöttin. The tower still exists on the Schandauerstrasse. In 1898 and 1910, Unger designed the cover illustration for issues of the magazine Jugend. He also illustrated issues of the magazine Pan.
The apex
Around 1910, Unger's style changed notably. His strokes become bolder; his colors lose their intensity and his choice of motif becomes increasingly monotonous. The dreamlike female figure that around the turn of the century was captivating and fresh became a cliché. Her face had turned harsh and without expression. However, in his portraits and landscapes Unger remained as powerful as he had ever been.In 1912, the newly built City Museum in his hometown Bautzen opened and celebrated Unger by giving him his own room. He was at the apex of his fame and was called Dresden's letzter Malerfürst by the press.
The outbreak of World War I in November 1914 forced many young artists to join the military and fight at the front, but Unger was already so prominent in his profession that he was spared this fate and could continue to devote himself to his art.
In 1917 Unger participated in the exhibition of the Dresdner Kunstgenossenschaft. He designed the catalogue's cover image and featured six paintings, among them Salome and Liegende Mädchen, and six drawings. In 1918 the Dresdner Kunst Ausstellung featured Unger with another 11 paintings and 10 drawings. attesting to his popularity and renown in the artistic community. His poster for the concerts of his friend, the composer and director Jean-Louis Nicodé, won him a prize in England for "best German poster".
A lost world
In 1918, Germany lost the war, and it also lost the monarchy. The young artists, returning from the front, were disillusioned and wanted only one thing, which was Change, moving even further away from impressionism and copying reality as they had done in the years prior to World War I. Unger's world of idealized women in soothing landscapes had been overhauled by the Zeitgeist and his work was relegated to the background. Nonetheless, he was still one of the wealthiest artists in Dresden, and he continued to travel to Italy, Dalmatia, Spain, Portugal and Africa. Unger's visits to Egypt resulted in an exhibition in the Galerie Baumbach in Dresden in 1927 and in King Fuad I of Egypt becoming one of his patrons.In 1933 the Sächsischer Kunstverein organized an exhibition on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The arts journalist Felix Zimmermann wrote an honorary article on Unger in the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten of August 25, 1932.
Meanwhile, his health deteriorated. What later turned out to be a kidney disease was treated too late and Hans Unger died in his home in Loschwitz, a suburb of Dresden, on 9 August 1936. He was buried in Loschwitz Cemetery, where his grave still exists. History had certainly caught up with him. Adolf Hitler was already in power for more than three years, the economy was in the worst state of the entire 20th century and the days of Art Nouveau and fin de siècle were certainly over.
Renewed interest
However, the resurging interest in Jugendstil art in the 1960s brought Unger's work back to the attention of the art connoisseurs. In 1987, the City Museum in Bautzen organized an exhibition to commemorate the 125th anniversary of his birth. In 1997 a retrospective exhibition on Unger was held in the City Museum in Freital, Germany. In 2013, an exhibition in Bielefeld titled Beauty and Mystery. German symbolism featured some of his works along with artists that influenced him such as Franz von Stuck, Max Klinger and Arnold Böcklin.Personal life
Unger married his wife Marie Antonia in 1899. She was to become his muse, his model and the main subject of his works. She is said to have been quite beautiful and the centre of attention of the many friends in the artistic circles in Dresden, especially musicians and writers, which Unger invited to his house.In 1902, Unger designed his own villa in Loschwitz. His prominence as a daring young artist and his popularity among the Dresden upper class as a portraitist had made him a wealthy man. Unger also designed the entire interior decoration himself. This however was removed during a renovation in the early 1970s. The villa, on the Kügelgenstrasse no. 6, still exists and offers a view on the river Elbe and, further away, on the Dresden city centre.
In 1903, his only child, his daughter Maja, was born, who had clearly inherited her mother's looks. Her godfather was Sascha Schneider, a lifelong friend of Unger. After her death in 1973, Unger's estate was sold and scattered.