Adolf Maennchen

Theodor Gustav Alwin Adolf Maennchen (7 September 1860, Rudolstadt - 30 March 1920, Düsseldorf) was a German landscape and genre painter.

Adolf Maennchen (c.1902)

Life and work

He was born to Carl Maennchen, a Master tanner, and his wife, Emilie née Güntsche. His younger brother, Albert [de], also became a painter.

After serving an apprenticeship as a decorative painter, he plied his trade as a wandering journeyman in Germany and Austria. During this extended period, he also spent some time at the Dresden School of Applied Arts [de] (1878-1879), and took night classes at the teaching institute of the Arts and Crafts Museum [de] in Berlin (1880–1883). In 1883, he became a full-time student at the Berlin University of the Arts, which he attended until 1888. His instructors there included Julius Ehrentraut [de], Paul Thumann, Otto Knille and Eugen Bracht.

He continued to work as a decorative painter while studying and, upon graduating, was able to make a study trip to Italy and North Africa. He travelled whenever possible; visiting Switzerland, the Netherlands and France. In Paris, he attended the Académie Julian, where he took lessons from Jules-Joseph Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury.

In 1896, he was awarded a small gold medal at the Große Berliner Kunstausstellung. He received another gold medal at the Exposition Universelle (1900), and held a major exhibition at the Glaspalast in 1901.

From 1889 to 1893, he was a teacher at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, then taught at the Baugewerkschule [de] in Danzig until 1901. The following year, he was named a Professor and head of the drawing classes at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.^[1] He held those positions until 1918.

The Stone Breakers