Background
Max Peiffer Watenphul was born on September 1, 1896, in Weferlingen, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. He was a son of Karl Josef Emil Peiffer, owner of a pharmacy, and Anna Peiffer (maiden name Kux), a descendant of a Rhineland Huguenot family.
1914
Max Peiffer Watenphul as a student in Bonn, Germany.
1920
Young Max Peiffer Watenphul at the Bauhaus, Weimar.
1920
Max Peiffer Watenphul
1952
Max Peiffer Watenphul with Jean Cocteau during the exhibition at the Galerie Nebelung, Düsseldorf.
1954
Max Peiffer Watenphul in Venice.
1956
Max Peiffer Watenphul sketching on Ischia.
1956
Max Peiffer Watenphul (left) on Ischia with Hans Purrmann, Richard Parrisius, and Eduard Bargheer.
1963
Max Peiffer Watenphul (left) printing lithographs in Salzburg.
1972
Max Peiffer Watenphul
Stadtlandschaft mit Brücke by Max Peiffer Watenphul purchased at Auktionshaus Lempertz, Cologne for $40,547 in 2018.
Max Peiffer Watenphul in Venice.
Max Peiffer Watenphul with Wolfgang and Helga Bingel.
Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 8, 99423 Weimar, Germany
The Bauhaus University Weimar where Max Peiffer Watenphul studied from 1919 to 1922.
Max Peiffer Watenphul was born on September 1, 1896, in Weferlingen, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. He was a son of Karl Josef Emil Peiffer, owner of a pharmacy, and Anna Peiffer (maiden name Kux), a descendant of a Rhineland Huguenot family.
Max Peiffer Watenphul was a sickly child. His father managed the pharmacy in Weferlingen. Shortly before his death in 1903, the family relocated to Wernigerode town, not far from Harz mountains, where Max attended school.
Watenphul first tried his hand in painting at the age of ten when he received a box of oil paints as a gift from his mother. One of his early works, Pan im Schilf (Pan in the Reeds), was inspired in style by the art of Arnold Böcklin. In 1906, Watenphul's mother married for the second time. Her husband, Dr. phil. Heinrich Watenphul, served as a schoolmaster at the Quedlinburg Gymnasium where Max began to do his studies. Physics and natural sciences were among his favorite subjects.
In 1914, Watenphul passed the university entrance examinations and went to Bonn in order to study medicine following the will of his parents. He realized quickly that he wasn't made for the profession and came to Strasbourg, Frankfurt am Main, and Munich where he studied law instead. In 1918, Max Peiffer Watenphul obtained his doctorate in church law in Würzburg and passed the state law clerkship examination.
Paul Klee rejected Watenphul's request to become his teacher. However, Watenphul took some lessons from Stanislaus Stückgold, and, unsatisfied by his manner of teaching, came back to Klee who finally agreed to analyze his works.
From 1919 to the summer of 1922, Max Peiffer Watenphul followed the preliminary course of Johannes Itten at the Bauhaus University Weimar. He got acquainted with many well-known poets, philosophers, and artists through the lectures, debates, and concerts he attended. Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, and Josef Albers were among his teachers as well. Watenphul came to know the art of lithograph while at the Bauhaus.
Max Peiffer Watenphul was called up for military service in 1918. Trained as an infantry lieutenant in Mülheim, he wasn't sent to the front as the war had already ended. A year later, he occupied a post of a law clerk at the Hattingen district court. By the autumn of that same year, he dropped out a law career and decided to concentrate on painting.
Beginning in 1920, Watenphul had regular exhibitions with Das Junge Rheinland association of artists. While still at the Bauhaus University Weimar, he signed a contract with an art dealer Alfred Flechtheim who owned a gallery in Düsseldorf and made his first visit to Salzburg, the city that remained one of his sources of inspiration during the rest of his life. The first solo exhibition of Watenphul at the Kunstmuseum in Essen was organized in 1921. The acquaintances with Klaus Gebhard, Stefan Zweig, Richard Billinger, and Robert Neumann also dated to that period. The first visit to Italy that Watenphul made in November of 1921 dissatisfied the artist. In the summer of the next year, Watenphul was invited by Maria Cyrenius to work in her enamel workshop in Salzburg.
In July of 1924, the artist traveled to Cuba and Mexico where he remained for a year exploring the Mexican folk painting. Earning his life by teaching painting and producing posters, he reflected the nature of the country through his brightly colored landscapes.
On April 4, 1927, Max Peiffer Watenphul occupied the post of an educator at the Folkwangschule (currently the Folkwang University of the Arts) in Essen where he taught general artistic design till 1931. It was there where he finally realized his old passion for photography. At the end of the 1920s, the artist traveled to the South of France and Morocco with the collector Klaus Gebhard. He also made long trips to Florence, Venice, and Rome.
The Rome Prize that the artist received in 1931 provided him with a one-year residency at the German Academy in the Villa Massimo, Rome. Watenphul enlarged the circle of his fellows and produced many paintings, watercolors, and photographs. The period from 1933 to 1934 that the artist spent at the house of his parents in Hattingen was of the same fruitfulness. It resulted in numerous floral canvases which reflected the cushy time of the artist. In the winter of 1933, Watenphul organized the exhibitions of his canvases and sold his photos to different publishers.
The aggravation of the political situation in Germany by 1937 forced Max Peiffer Watenphul to search for the place of emigration. Because of the "Degenerate Art" campaign, he had no possibilities to exhibit within Germany. All his paintings held in the permanent collections, including the floral still life which provided him with the Carnegie Prize, were rejected from the art museums. Watenphul considered the United Kingdom and France as the possible places to flee to but finally went to Italy to his sister Grace whose husband could help with a residence permit.
While in Italy, the artist visited Ischia island where he got acquainted with his German fellows and intellectuals many of whom came there at this time, including Werner Gilles, Rudolf Levy, Eduard Bargheer and the composer Gottfried von Einem. It was a fruitful period for Watenphul artistic activity.
Having strong financial struggles by 1941, Max Peiffer Watenphul was constrained to come back to Germany where he succeeded Johannes Itten on his post of the head of the drawing and painting class at the Höhere Fachschule für textile Flächenkunst (Upper Professional School for Two-Dimensional Textile Art) in Krefeld. The significant part of the few watercolor paintings he produced at this period was lost in consequence of a bombing raid.
The artist then came to Vienna and Salzburg where he joined the teaching staff of the Kunstgewerbeschule (Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, currently the University of Applied Arts Vienna) on September 1, 1943 and held the post till 1946. The teaching activity didn’t disturb the painting one which resulted in plenty of paintings and watercolors depicting the city and its suburbs.
The tenure of Watenphul’s residence in Austria wasn’t prolonged after the end of the war because of his German citizenship. He was obliged to move to his half-sister Grace who lived in Venice. The artist stayed in the city for the next twelve years. During this time, his circle of acquaintances was enlarged with Filippo De Pisis, Zoran Mušič, and Peggy Guggenheim.
He had restrictions to exhibit as a German that caused financial and emotional problems. The painting presented at the Venice Biennale of 1948 improved the situation. The event was followed by his solo show organized by Carlo Cardazzo at his Galleria del Cavallino. The first postwar exhibitions of Watenphul's artworks were held that same year at the Kunstverein Braunschweig and Galerie Hella Nebelung in Düsseldorf with the help of the artist’s friends.
The first years of the 1950s were marked for Max Peiffer Watenphul by the new trips. After the artist received a passport close to the end of 1950, he first visited Salzburg where he was given a studio that he kept till 1971. He then revisited his home country for the first time after the war. Essen, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Braunschweig, and Zurich were among his points of destination. After meeting an art gallery owner Chichio Haller, Max Peiffer Watenphul tried himself in lithography for the first time. He then mastered the technique and applied his knowledge in the lithographic workshop of the Residenz in Salzburg where he worked with Herbert Breiter and Rudolf Hradil almost every summer. Watenphul had regular exhibitions at the local galleries. He produced his best southern landscapes during his next visit to the Ischia island in 1956 which lasted about one year.
At the end of 1957, the artist established a small studio in Rome, on the Via dei Greci. He traveled a lot to southern Italy with his friends visiting Campania, Calabria, Apulia, Umbria, and Monte Gargano. Such excursions to the Roman countryside inspired Watenphul on new watercolor works.
Despite his venerable age, Max Peiffer Watenphul continued to explore new horizons. Accompanied by his friend Moore Crosthwaite, the artist made his first trip to Greece in 1961. The first encounter with the Hellenistic was followed by the trips to Athens, Delphi, Corinth, Nafplion, Olympia, and Sparta. Watenphul was so impressed that he then regularly visited the Corfu island where he had an apartment.
In 1964, Watenphul was invited to teach at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg succeeding Oscar Kokoschka on his post. Teaching there for three summers, he was very respected by students. Two years later, Peiffer Watenphul, along with the Frankfurt publisher Gotthard de Beauclair published a collection of the lithographs made for the Buch Suleika and the Schenkenbuch from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's West-östlicher Divan. It was followed by other collections.
In 1966, Max Peiffer Watenphul started to work on the frescoes for a chapel of the country estate Il Pero. It was done by 1967. That same year, the artist produced illustrations for the German version of "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote.
Watenphul produced his last painting in the winter of 1970. From then till the end of his days, he concentrated on drawings, watercolors, and lithographs.
Das Gardinenfenster
Vorstadt in Mexico City
Frau mit Blumenstrauß
Landschaft
Frau mit Blumen in der Hand
Park in Weimar
Fabriklandschaft mit rauchenden Schloten
Strand bei Terracina
Stillleben mit Krug
Landschaft bei Ragusa (Dubrivnik)
Strand bei Cefalù
Schiffe vor der Dogana in Venedig
Portrait of Maria Cyrenius
Near Ragusa (Dubrovnik)
Sister Grace with Cat
Quotations:
"In my view, it is superfluous to write about paintings because they must speak for themselves. That is what they are made for. Paintings that require instructions are absurd."
"I believe that one can have a natural sense for paintings, and that one must be inwardly open to them. This sense cannot be acquired. Just as there are people who have understanding and love for gemstones, and others who have an understanding and love for plants, so, too, there are people who possess an innate sense for the inner values of a painting. [...] It is the same in music and in poetry: one man is deeply moved by a line of Georg Trakl’s and it leaves another man entirely cold."
Max Peiffer Watenphul was a member of Das Junge Rheinland association from 1920. On May 20, 1965, he became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.
Max Peiffer Watenphul made the family name of his father his own middle name on September 4, 1919.
During the years that Watenphul spent in Italy, he mastered the Italian language that allowed him to read plenty of books by the modern Italian authors of the time.
At the end of his life, Watenphul took lessons of modern Greek from the Greek monks of the Via dei Greci.
Travelling occupied an important place in the artist's life. The places he visited and discovered served a good source of inspiration for his canvases.