Today is the birthday (in 1887) of August Macke – a leading German Expressionist painter. He was born in a small town in Westphalia. His father was a building contractor and his mother was from a farming family. He grew up in Cologne and attended the Kunstacademie in Dusseldorf along with other notable painters.
He was a leading painter of some avant-garde art movements – he dabbled in Fauvism with its wild brush strokes and strong colors and moved into the then-current German movement of Expressionism which sought to show the world from a subjective perspective, distorting it for emotional effect to produce moods or ideas.
I like his work. He wasn’t afraid to try new and different things but, unlike some more abstract art, I find his work quite accessible. I particularly like his use of color.
Like many young men of the time his life and career were cut short by the tragedy of World War I. He was called up in August of 1914 along with millions of others and was killed in Champagne, France on 26 September 1914 about a month later. His last work, Farewell, depicts the mood of gloom after the outbreak of the war. He was 28.
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