Background
August Macke was born on January 3, 1887, in Meschede, Germany. He was the only son of August Friedrich Hermann Macke and his wife, Maria Florentine Adolph, who came from a farming family in Westphalia's Sauerland region.
Dusseldorf, Germany
August Macke studied at the Arts Academy from 1906 - 1908.
August Macke was born on January 3, 1887, in Meschede, Germany. He was the only son of August Friedrich Hermann Macke and his wife, Maria Florentine Adolph, who came from a farming family in Westphalia's Sauerland region.
August Macke studied at the Arts and Crafts School as well as at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1906 to 1908, making money as a stage designer. As a student he contributed costume and stage designs for the Düsseldorf theater (famous for its director and outstanding actress, Louise Dumont).
In 1908 Koehler went with Macke to Paris, visiting exhibits and artists, thus providing Macke with an introduction to Cubism and Fauvism, the works of Paul Cezanne and Robert Delaunay. Koehler—through Macke—was also instrumental in providing funds for one of the most important contributions to modern art, the publication of the Blue Rider Almanac in 1911, to which Macke also contributed an article. Koehler also financed in part the largest European avant-garde art exhibit ever held in Germany at that time, the Erster Deutscher Herbst Salon (First German Fall Salon) at the Sturm Gallery of Herwarth Walden in Berlin in 1913.
Macke's half year of study with the famous painter Lovis Corinth was of less importance to his artistic development than his friendship with Franz Marc (after 1910) and his subsequent participation with Wassily Kandinsky in the Blue Rider Group. Macke was not very interested in the theoretical concepts of either Kandinsky or Marc; his vitality, his love for life, led him to experiment with various forms on his own, developing a variance of Cubism based on his special relations to colors. From early on, Macke chose as his main themes simple, everyday scenes from the life he loved so much. Neither the speed of modern life nor the tranquility of rural sites held any fascination for him. He painted modern, often elegantly dressed, human figures in quiet, harmonious, man-made surroundings: in parks, in the zoo, on the banks of rivers, or in front of shop windows, as well as scenes from the circus. There is no haste in the movements of his figures: quiet conversations, people reading or watching animals or the river flow by, scenes rarely found elsewhere in German Expressionism.
Macke was fascinated by the power of color to construct space and distance, permitting him to make figures and surroundings equally important. He ordered his abbreviated forms in carefully balanced color variations, avoiding the frequently apocalyptic and fantastic forms of his friends of the Blue Rider Group. The influence of Delaunay's "orphic" colors is easily recognized in Macke's work, but his vigorous and strong temperament translated the various influences into paintings which are independent and unique and—in strong contrast to most expressionistic works of the period—closely allied to the French developments in the arts.
Macke also produced small sculptures, designed stained-glass windows, and made designs for embroideries. He actively participated in two important modern exhibitions: the exhibition of Rhenish Expressionists in Bonn as well as the First German Fall Salon in Berlin in 1913. His greatest artistic achievements, promising even more succinct accomplishments, were made in 1914. Again with the help of Bernhard Koehler, he travelled with Paul Klee and an old Swiss friend, the painter Louis Moilliet, to North Africa, Tunis, and Kairouan. Paul Klee remarked later that it was this trip which provided him with the true understanding of color, probably in part under Macke's influence. Macke's many watercolors and sketches show strong response to the Mediterranean light, the different forms of North Africa, and the appreciation of the extraordinary local colors.
Macke's simple and direct approach to everyday life, his carefully balanced compositions, and his lively colors all enhanced his images of the column-like figures. The serene and balanced visions show a world of visual poetry which separates him from the more forceful works of his expressionist friends and establish for him a special position in this early development of modern art.
His career as an artist spanned only eight short years. He was killed on September 26, 1914, as a soldier in the first weeks of World War I.
Terrace of the country house in St. Germain
1914Still life hyacinths carpet
1910Dog on fire
Colourfull shapes
1913Walk in flowers
Three Women at the Table by the Lamp
1912Seated female with a pillow
At the cemetery
Still life with bowl of apples and Japanese fan
Woman Sewing
Children and sunny trees
1913Colourfull shapes
1913Picnic on the beach
1913Girl in the greenery
1914Two Women and a Man on an Avenue
1914Promenade
1913Reclining female nude
Blue Parrots
Bright House
1914Woman with Child and Girls on a Road
1913Dealer with jugs
1914Landscape with Cows and a Camel
1914Kairouan (III)
Bright woman in front of a hat store
1913St. Mary's with Houses and Chimney (Bonn)
1911Portrait of the artist's wife with a hat
1909Trees and fields
1911Gelbes Segel
Street with church in Kandern
1911A Glance Down an Alley
People at the blue lake
1913Circus
1911Still life with pillow with deer décor and a bouquet
1911Gartentor
1914Portrait of Dr. Ludwig Deubner, writing
1903Horse Market
1908Under the arcades
Colored composition (Hommage to Johann Sebastian Bachh)
1912Gorge
1914Native Americans on horses
1911Satire to the Blue Rider
Garden Restaurant
1912Portrait of Franz Marc
1910Fashion Store
1914Three acts
1913Zoological Garden I
1912Garden on Lake Thun
Sailing boat on the Tegernsee
1910House in the garden
1914Self-portrait
1906Big Zoo, Triptych
1913Market in Algiers
1914Landscape on the Teggernsee with a reading man
1910Couple in the woods
1912Woman in park
1914Woman in front of a large illuminated window
In the zoological garden
1914Gartenbild
1911Farewell
1914The Church of St. Mary in Bonn in Snow
1911Anglers on the Rhine
1907At the Rhine near Hersel
1908Franz Marc and Maria in the studio
1912Riders and walkers at a parkway
1914Rocky Landscape
1914In the bazaar
1914Female nude at a knited carpet
Woman in a Green Jacket
1913Female nude with corall necklace
1910Walking in the Park
1914Indianer
Parkway
1914Children at the fountain
In front of the hat shop (woman with red jacket and child)
1913Turkish jewelry dealer
1914House in a Landscape
Fashion window
Colour circle
Afternoon in the Garden
1913St. Germain near Tunis
1914Woman with a Yellow Jacket
1913Inner courtyard of house in St. Germain
1914Our street with horse riding, Bonn
1913St. George
1912Vegetable fields
1911Sketch of the bridge
1911Garden on Lake Thun
1913View of Tegernsee
Stroller
1907Elisabeth Gerhard sewing
1909Farbige Formen III
1913Portrait with apples (Portrait of the Artist's Wife)
1909Franz Marc with Russi
Turkish Cafe (II)
1914Elisabeth at the Table
1909Tunis landscape with a sedentary Arabs
1914Woman with pitcher under trees
1912Paul Klee
1914Salto mortale in circus
Church Decorated with Flags
1914Tightrope walker
1914Landscape near Hammamet
1914The Storm
1911Arcade in Thun
Reading man in park
1914Reading woman
Untitled
1913The way on the water
Russisches Ballett (I)
1912At the Garden Table
1914Girl with a Fish Bowl
Bathing girls with town in the backgraund
1913On the Street
1914Woman with Lyre and dog
Turkish Cafe (I)
1914Self-Portrait with Hat
1909In the Temple Hall
1914Man with donkey
1914Red house in park
1914Sunny way
1913Donkey Rider
Two women in front of a hat shop
1914Catedral of Freiburg in the Switzerland
1914Tree in the cornfield
1907Round dance
1912Children at the Grocery Store
The Hat Shop
1913August Macke was one of the founders of "The Blue Rider" ("Der Blaue Reiter"), an avant-garde group of expressionist painters based in Munich.
In 1909 August married Elisabeth Gerhardt.