Otto Altenkirch

As a master of Dresden Impressionist landscape painting, Otto Altenkirch (1875-1945) is overshadowed by Gotthardt Kuehl and Robert Sterl - unjustly!

Altenkirch had come to Dresden from Berlin with his teacher Eugen Bracht and, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, had laid the material foundation for his freelance work from 1910 with his position as senior court theatre painter.

In more than four decades, he created over 2,300 landscape paintings, of which around 500 can still be located today. Most of the paintings were created alla prima in and around his birthplace of Ziesar, on the Dresdner Heller and around his residence in Siebenlehn.

Altenkirch perfected the application of colour with a palette knife and was sometimes more innovative than his better-known colleagues with regard to the impressionistic resolution of forms and the reproduction of weather and light moods. Among his contemporaries, he was regarded as "the Saxon Liebermann".

The exhibition aims to provide an overview of Altenkirch's work development and his painting locations.