Saturday, April 7, 2018

Von Hayek's Animal-Painting Academy

German impressionist painter Hans von Hayek encouraged his students to paint animals from life.

Painters at von Hayek's art colony in Dachau
Von Hayek arranged for his students to visit farms, where farmhands would hold the animals relatively still.

According to Wikipedia, "One of his students, Carl Thiemann, wrote in his memoirs that the local farmers frequently complained about them trampling the grass and leaving oil paints behind."

Hans von Hayek
These art lessons took place in the Dachau district of Germany before it had its wartime associations.

Hans von Hayek
Von Hayek studied at the animal painting academy of Heinrich von Zügel.



Von Hayek had many famous students, including Hugo Hatzler, Hermann Stenner, Julie WolfthornAnna Klein, and Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, who I mentioned in a recent post.


Women painters were attracted to the colony because they weren't allowed into the State Academy in Munich until 1926.

Hans von Hayek sketching
The artists took their sketchbooks everywhere and often traveled by bicycle to their destinations.
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5 comments:

Unknown said...

This is so awesome and I am so jealous! I wish there was a functional Animal Painting Academy in existence today!

Alan Anderson said...

James have you mixed honey or glycerin into paints? What’s your take and is there a ratio to paint amount, or a rule of thumb percentage?

jeff said...

The Pennsylvania Academy of Art had a studio/barn that was designed for drawing and painting large animals. I'm not sure if it's still used today, but it was still in use in the late 90's.

biffographics@earthlink.net said...

It's called a Zoo!

James Gurney said...

Alan, I've used Plakkaatverf gouache, which uses a potato-dextrin binder, and I believe M. Graham uses honey in some of its mixtures. I've used glycerin in my smoke machine, but not in my gouache.