Happy Birthday, Adolph Menzel

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the German artist Adolph Menzel.

Adolph Menzel’s drawing supplies accompanied him everywhere, whether on a short walk or a long journey. He was always prepared to draw. One of his overcoats had eight pockets, each filled with sketchbooks of different sizes. On the lower left side of his coat was an especially large pocket which held a leather case with a big sketchbook, some pencils, a couple of shading stumps, and a gum eraser.

His personal motto was “Nulla dies sine linea” (”Not a day without a line”). He drew ambidextrously, alternating between the left and the right, sometimes on the same drawing. If he was ever caught without drawing paper, he sketched on whatever was available, even a formal invitation to a court ball. Whenever he was spotted at a social event, the whispered word went abroad that “Menzel is lurking about.”

Adolph Menzel, Sleeping Youth, The Morgan Library

He was known to interrupt an important gathering by pulling out his sketchbook, sharpening his pencil, casting an eye around the room, and focusing on a coat, a chair, or a hand. This sometimes brought the proceedings to a halt until he finished. He preferred to draw people unawares, often catching them in unflattering moments of eating, gossiping, or dozing. Once his friend Carl Johann Arnold awoke from a nap to find the artist busily drawing his portrait. “You just woke up five minutes too early,” Menzel told him.

The above teaser excerpt is taken from an introduction that I wrote for a book on Menzel's Drawings and Paintings that will be coming out next year. About that, more later. But for now, There's an exhibition at the Stiftung Stadtmuseum in Berlin to mark the occasion.

If you do a sketch today, do it in honor of Mr. Menzel. It's always good to have his ghost on your side.

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Adolph Menzel on Wikipedia

Menzel's Paintings on Paper

Adolph Menzel, Senior Privy Councillor Knerk,
portrait study for the painting The Coronation of Wilhelm I in Königsberg, 1863/1865,
watercolour and gouache over a preparatory sketch on vellum paper

Adolph Menzel (1815–1905) is currently featured in a Berlin exhibition about his paintings on paper.

According to the Kupferstichkabinett, the museum that's hosting the show, Menzel "is known as a painter of large works on canvas, and as the creator of countless studies in pencil. But it was first as a painter of works on paper that he began to employ the full palette of his artistic gifts of expression, creating colourful works ranging from experimental portrait studies through to elaborately composed paintings."

Adolph Menzel "Diploma for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Heckmann Factory", 1869

The museum "possesses the largest collection of works on paper by this German artist, comprising more than 6,000 works – is rediscovering Menzel as a painter of works on paper with a major solo exhibition. The show will feature around 100 works in watercolour, pastels and gouache from the museum’s own holdings, along with a number of key loans. Together, they offer the first comprehensive survey of Menzel’s painterly works on paper."


(Link to YouTube)

"The majority of the works shown in the exhibition are standalone works, however there are also a number of preparatory studies for famous paintings."

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Book, edited by James Gurney "Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings" also available on Amazon.
Exhibition: "Menzel. Painter on Paper" at the Kupferstichkabinett through 19 January 2020.

Thanks, Christian Schlierkamp

Menzel and Photography

In the comments about yesterday's post about Adolph Menzel, Tom Hart wondered about Menzel's relationship with photography and mechanical drawing aids such as a camera obscura.

Drei Rüstungen und zwei Helme. [Three suits of armor and two helmets]. 1866.
Gouache on toned paper. 41.1 x 31.7 cm. [16.1 x 12.5 in.] KK.
Copyright © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett/SMB/Jörg P. Anders

Tom, I haven't found any evidence that Menzel ever used a camera obscura. But he was definitely aware of the benefits and pitfalls of reference photography to the artist, and he wrote about the issue. 

He owned a collection of photographs of armor and weapons from the history museum in Dresden, but he still drew from observation the historical props he needed for a given picture, partly to understand them from different angles. 

[Portrait study of Maximilian von Schwerin-Putzar]. 

1864. Pencil, watercolor, gouache on toned paper. 30.1 x 22.5 cm. 

[11.9 x 8.9 in.] KK. © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett/SMB/Jörg P. Anders14 

In general, he rejected the use of reference photography unless it was absolutely necessary. In the early 1860s, when he was preparing the gigantic painting of the Coronation of Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, he had to paint 132 portrait likenesses. He could have used photography for reference, but he chose to work from life studies instead.

Portrait study of Emil von Webern. 1863. Pencil, watercolor, heightened with white on toned paper. 

28.9 x 23.0 cm. [11.4 x 9 in.] KK. Copyright © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett/SMB/Jörg P. Anders 

Menzel wrote that the use of photography “is diametrically opposed to my belief in the responsibility of the artist to art and his self-confidence; and even the continuation of such a method must necessarily lead to the loss of discipline in certain important powers of the eyes, the hand, the memory, and the imagination concerning animated nature.”

Emilie und Richard [Emilie and Richard]. 1865. 
Pencil on paper. Courtesy of Dr. Czok, Chairwoman, Adolph Menzel Society. 

Such attitudes may have seemed old fashioned to many of Menzel’s contemporary artists, who by the late nineteenth century were beginning to rely on photography’s documentary powers. In fact, Menzel was keenly interested in the new invention. Starting in 1864 his brother Richard ran a successful photography business, which produced reproductions of Menzel’s work.

After Richard’s death, Menzel advised his sister-in-law in the running of the business. According to Max Liebermann, who knew his artistic sensibilities well, “His visual sense, naturally inclined towards the observation and reproduction of the tiniest details, received fresh stimulus from photography.”

This is an excerpt from the Introduction of my new book from Dover. The images in this post all appear in the book. The book contains 130 images, including 32 pages of color. Note: the listing on Amazon shows the incorrect cover.

Here's the link if you'd like to order a signed copy from my website store (I can ship to addresses in the USA only, because of the high shipping rates overseas, sorry). If it's a gift book and you want me to sign it to someone in particular, just make a note on the order form.

Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings from JamesGurney.com

Artistic Integrity and Commercial Art

S. H. R. Rjjal asks: "Mr. Gurney, what's your take on artistic integrity and commercial art? The original Harry Potter illustrator for instance does not own a single one of her work."

Adolph Menzel, "The signal for war was thus given to Europe."
Engraver: Unzelmann, Friedrich Ludwig (Source)
Book: Die Werke Friedrichs des Großen, vol. 2
Author: Volz, Gustav Berthold
Publisher:Berlin: Reimar Hobbing, 1913

Dear S.H.R,
Commissioned work doesn't have to be commercial. Just because you're paid to draw something doesn't mean you have to cynically crank it out. If you're going to do work on commission, it might as well include your personal inspiration and your highest standards.

The same is true with gallery art, which is potentially more commercial than illustration. There's always a temptation to produce work only because we know it will sell, though we may have drifted away from the authentic original inspiration.

If you do illustration work, you typically get to keep your originals. It's wise to keep at least some of your best examples. If you work hard on them, you'll be proud of them and they might be worth a lot more in the future.

An excerpt of my introduction to the book on Adolph Menzel (German, 1815-1905) addresses this point: As a commercial printer, Menzel threw himself into the task of producing decorative illustration work, such as menus, letterheads, greeting cards, and invitations. Anyone else might have written off such jobs as menial. For Menzel, to produce anything less than a sincere effort would be to “throw one’s cake in the water.” He told admiring students that it was essential to do justice to every assignment, and to accept everything as a genuine artistic challenge. “You will then cease at once to consider anything unworthy of your powers,” he said.

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Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings (on Amazon)
Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings (signed from my website)
Source for the Menzel illustration in this post

Menzel the Man

Should an artist's physical appearance matter, or should we consider only the work? I suppose one's appearance only matters if it affects his work or his outlook on life. And in Adolph Menzel's case his unique form certainly shaped his personal and artistic choices. 

Adolph Menzel (1815-1905) was conspicuously small in stature, only four feet, six inches tall. He had a large head and was often compared to a gnome. He frequently scowled. When he was young, his peers called him the “Little Mushroom.” When he became angry and fought back, they called him the “Poisonous Mushroom.” 

Adolph von Menzel in his studio before a screen,
with his left hand drawing in a sketchbook. 1904.

His unusual stature affected his life from his early days. Reflecting on his art education, he said, “It would have been quite useful for me to have attended the Academy longer; only that, you know, a certain pride stood in the way: one pitied the cripple—the small one was smiled at. I sensed that strongly my whole life long, most strongly in my youth.” Although he was beloved by his circle of close friends and relations for his intelligence and wit, he spoke gruffly to strangers, not wanting to endure their condescension.  He was extremely devoted to his family, especially his sister, brother and nephew.

In his self-portraits he regarded himself warily and uncomfortably. He did not like writers of his day to recount anecdotes about him, and urged them to “Please leave aside everything personal.” While reviewing galley proofs of a book of his artwork, he wrote marginal corrections full of sarcastic remarks about those “jackasses, the gentlemen of pen and ink.”

He kept to himself and never married. “Not only have I remained unmarried, throughout my life I have also renounced all relations with the other sex,” he wrote in his last will and testament. . . .There is a lack of any kind of self-made bond between me and the outside world.” There are few portrayals of female nudes in his life work. 

Boy with water glass. 1889. Pencil on paper. 20.8 x 13.3 cm. [8.2 x 5.2 in.] 
Photo: © Karen Bartsch, /Villa Grisebach, Berlin 

His alienation shaped his artistic outlook. One drawing might show a man sitting on a toilet or the patterns of an old man’s chest hair. At the same time, paradoxically, his drawings evince a remarkable empathy, particularly for people who were old, poor, or suffering. He was fascinated with frankly chronicling the physiognomies of his fellow humans. 

Nobility often lies hidden behind unglamorous appearances. He once said, “A person not only acts with, but also has, a certain external appearance, and the latter is as inconsequential as it is accidental.”

In his mature years he had a studio on the fifth floor, where models would come in small groups and talk informally. Gustav Kirstein wrote that “on the landing one could encounter old, ugly models, ‘character heads,” which he preferred for practice in those late years.

The images in this post and the text are excerpted from my new book Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings. The book contains 130 images, including 32 pages of color.

The book is available signed from my website. Here's the link if you'd like to order a signed copy. It's also available on Amazon.

Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings signed copies from JamesGurney.com

Adolph Menzel's Hochkirch Painting

Adolph Menzel (German 1815-1905) undertook this ambitious painting without a commission. It was a battle scene, but it didn't glorify the war.

Adolph Menzel, Frederick the Great and His Men in the Battle of Hochkirch
(Night Attack at Hochkirch), 1856, oil on canvas, 295 x 378 cm,
destroyed during the Second World War

It shows Frederick the Great's soldiers engaged "in a crushing defeat suffered during the Seven Years War, and, to make matters worse, a defeat that could be laid entirely at the feet of the king and that cost the lives of a sizable number of his leading generals, not to mention those of nine thousand soldiers, was not a painting that lent itself to propaganda purposes or the the glorification of the Hohenzollern dynasty."

Nevertheless, the painting was much talked about, and eventually it was bought by the king. What helped sell it was the argument, which Menzel made in a letter to the king, that the painting shows Frederick's nobility in the way he accepted defeat.

The work took Menzel a long time to complete. It come down to us in photographs of poor quality, because the canvas itself was destroyed in World War II.
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Quote from the book Adolph Menzel: The Quest for Reality by Werner Busch.

Menzel and His Models

Adolph Menzel, Study of Three Heads, 1898

"Menzel required great efforts from his models, often bringing them to the point of total exhaustion, but at the same time he was very grateful. 

Drawing by Adolph Menzel

"He once had a soldier sitting on a wooden model of a horse. 

"All of a sudden the man fainted and slid from the back of the horse to the ground, but before he ran after a glass of water, Menzel quickly noted with a few strokes the (fallen) position of the soldier."

From Memories of Adolph Menzel, translations of Menzel's student Carl Johann Arnold by Christian Schlierkamp.

Christian S. and I co-edited a book on Menzel's drawings, which you can get signed here.

Menzel Book Now Available

I'm pleased to announce that my new book on Adolph Menzel is now available, and you can get a signed copy today.

This art book collects the best of his drawings, watercolors, pastels, and gouaches, many of which have never been published before.

Adolph Menzel (1815-1905) exhibited tremendous powers of observation and an interest in a wide range of subjects.

Bildnis Friederike Arnold [Portrait of Friederike Arnold]. 1847.
Pastel, highlighted with Chinese white on brown paper. 45.2 x 24.5 cm. [17.8 x 13.6 in.] GSS

Menzel drew and painted everything—people, animals, architecture, and landscapes. His drawings and watercolors were revered by contemporary realists for their truth to nature and technical accomplishment.

He was also a master of historical illustration, and this collection includes some of the best examples of his imaginative realism.

Halberstadt, Dom: Blick auf das Chorgestühl. [Halberstadt, Cathedral: view of the choir stalls].
1850/1864. Pencil and watercolor. 20.3 x 11.5 cm [8 x 4.5 in.] KK.
Copyright © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett/SMB

The book has been over four years in the making. It took a long time to get the rights cleared.

I selected the drawings and paintings in this volume from vast archives of his work (he was extremely prolific), and I also wrote the introduction. I was lucky to have the help of my Berlin friend Christian Schlierkamp, who, along with Christoph Heuer, interviewed top Menzel scholars, translated journals and letters, and went to the museums there to locate unusual works that hadn't been published before.

The book also includes two short essays by leading Menzel scholars Claudia Czok and Claude Keisch, who describes Menzel's studio in detail.

The publisher is Dover, and they did a fine job reproducing the art from high resolution files taken from the original art.

The result is a labor of love that we are very proud of. This is the finest collection in print of the drawings and watercolors of an unjustly overlooked artist. It contains 130 images, including 32 pages of color. Note: the listing on Amazon shows the incorrect cover.

Here's the link if you'd like to order a signed copy from my website store (USA only, sorry). Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings, Introduction by James Gurney, and signed by the Editor. The first 30 copies ordered will be signed by both me and my co-editor Christian Schlierkamp.

Edit: Here's a well-illustrated video biography with German voiceover (link to YouTube) Thanks, Vanessa!

I'll share excerpts from my introduction over the next week or so.

Menzel's Technique

Traveling in beautiful nature. 1892. Gouache.
[11 x 15 in.] Neumeister Auction House (NAH)

Menzel's friend Paul Friedrich Meyerheim observed that Menzel’s technique was always different from other artists of his time. Painting in oils did not come easily for him, and he didn’t care very much for technical finesse.

He used children’s watercolor pigments, exhausted bristle brushes, and a palette made from a toothpaste dish.

After 1887 he declared that he would retire his oils in favor of gouache. He felt gouache was more suited to capturing certain natural effects. According to Meyerheim, “It didn’t appear right to him to present dry stone, a sandy path, or a woolen sheep as if all of those things had been drenched in oil and varnish. . . . He expressed his greatest truths in pastels, watercolors, and gouache.”

The Festival of the White Rose 1829. The tournament begins.
Gouache. 1854. 44.0 x 58.0 cm. [17.3 x 22.8 in.] NAH 

Some of his most ambitious gouache paintings were commissioned as a gift set to commemorate the visit to Berlin of Alexandra Feodorovna, the spouse of Russian Emperor Nicholas II. 

The Festival of the White Rose was an elaborate and highly romanticized public spectacle that enchanted aristocratic society. Menzel presents the complex panoramas as seen through extravagant framing devices. 

The whole 3D illusion is painted in gouache. The book has 10 color plates from this Festival of the White Rose series, all reproduced for the first time. 

Standing elderly man, half-nude, seen from behind, 1894.
Pencil on paper. 28.5 x 41.0 cm. [11.2 x 16.1 in.] KK 

For the last ten years of his life, Menzel used only the pencil and the stump, which is a leather-coated or wrapped paper wiping stick used to soften or blend the strokes that were first laid down with the pencil. 

Menzel advised the son of a friend to “use the stump to correctly establish the shadows, after which one has to draw as necessary into the softened shadows.”

Woman with a dead bird in her raised hand, half-figure to the left.
1881–1882. Pencil on paper. 7.7 x 5 in. KK. © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett

Many unfinished drawings show this base layer of blurry tones over which a gravelly texture was directly applied with the pencil tip. His final drawings are often dominated by stump work, which lends them a hazy, atmospheric quality, like figures emerging from smoke. 

In his pencil drawings, Menzel seemed to give little attention to the composition on the page. Images run off the edges of the page. Figures appear in fragmentary form, with parts of the pose redrawn whenever they could be improved. If a part of his own drawing displeased him, he ruthlessly crossed it out.

All the images in this post are included in the new book Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings. The book contains 130 images, including 32 pages of color.

The book is available now signed from my website. Here's the link if you'd like to order a signed copy (I can ship to addresses in the USA only, because of the high shipping rates overseas, sorry).

I've been packing and mailing lots of your orders. Amazon doesn't release the book until August 17.

Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings signed copies from JamesGurney.com

To Draw Everything

My co-editor on the Adolph Menzel book, Christian Schlierkamp, joined me for a book signing yesterday. For the first 35 lucky customers, we included our favorite inspirational quotes relating to Menzel.



Christian's quote was "alles Zeichnen ist nützlich, und Alles zeichnen auch” (“All drawing is useful, and to draw everything also.”) Menzel wrote that famous line when asked by art students about the value of drawing from plaster casts. His answer might be translated colloquially: "Any drawing you do helps, but it's also great to go out there and draw whatever else you can, too."

Menzel's friend Meyerheim rendered the famous quote slightly differently: „Alles Zeichnen ist gut. Alles zeichnen noch besser." This changes the sense of it a bit, suggesting that one thing is better than another. But no matter how you slice it, Menzel was the artist who more than anyone else, drew EVERYTHING.

Mann auf dem Abort [Man on a toilet]. 1872. Pencil. 13.9 x 8.2 cm. [5.5 x 3.2 in.] 
KK. Copyright © bpk/ Kupferstichkabinett/SMB 

As if to exemplify that point, he drew a man on a toilet. Our book reproduces this drawing for the first time. In drawing such a moment, Menzel isn't trying to be outrageous in a Modernist sense, it's just him documenting every aspect of life in all its grunge and glory.

The first batch shipped out today, and more will go out tomorrow. Amazon doesn't release the book until August 17.

The book contains 130 images, including 32 pages of color.

Here's the link if you'd like to order a signed copy from my website store (I can ship to addresses in the USA only, because of the high shipping rates overseas, sorry).

Check out Christian's blog about Menzel and drawing: "Alles Zeichnen," which is in English.

Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings from JamesGurney.com

Menzel's Painting Mediums

"Traveling in beautiful nature" by Adolph Menzel, gouache, 11x15 inches

A question came in: "James Gurney, can you tell us what medium(s) Adolph Menzel used when he painted?"

He used them all: oil, gouache, watercolor, and pastel. His friend Paul Meyerheim observed that Menzel’s technique was always different from other artists of his time because he was not a product of the academy.

Painting in oils did not come easily for him, and he didn’t care very much for technical finesse. He used children’s watercolor pigments, exhausted bristle brushes, and a palette made from a toothpaste dish. After 1887 he declared that he would retire his oils in favor of gouache. He felt gouache was more suited to capturing certain natural effects. 

According to Meyerheim, “It didn’t appear right to him to present dry stone, a sandy path, or a woolen sheep as if all of those things had been drenched in oil and varnish. . . . He expressed his greatest truths in pastels, watercolors, and gouache.”

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The painting above appears in color in my recent book Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings, and my answer is adapted from my introduction.

Menzel and Glazing

Adolph Menzel The Balcony Room, oil, 1845

Adolph Menzel was painting from life in oil many years before the Impressionists. His friend Paul Meyerheim described his way of working: “Especially in the time where the whole world was painting out of that brown soup, it was Menzel's characteristic to put every tone correctly mixed and thickly into the right place."

Adolph Menzel, The Studio Wall

Meyerheim continues: "He never performed the method of glazing. He always painted differently than his contemporaries and as a result the world wasn't familiar with his technique."

"He compared glazing or similar transitions with transparent colors to the use of the pedal on the piano, stating that a good pianist can play everything as if he was using the pedal. Yet as a matter of fact everything has to be played on the keys themselves without the tones getting blurred.”
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Thanks to Christian Schlierkamp and Christoph Heuer for help with the translation.
From Paul Meyerheim

Review of Menzel Book

Charley Parker of the art blog "Lines and Colors" has written a review of the new book on Adolph Menzel.

"Adolph Menzel’s drawings are a prime example of an artist’s devotion to drawing as a tool, craft, art and source of understanding and inspiration. His beautiful gouache pantings are a testament to that devotion as a source for richly realized finished works. Adolph Menzel: Drawings and Paintings provides a valuable showcase for both."

Read the rest of the review and see lots of sample art

Purchase the book now signed from my website (USA Only)
Purchase on Amazon (releases there Aug. 17)