Rudolf Grossmann

Rudolf Wilhelm Walther Großmann, also known as Grossmann (born January 25, 1882, in Freiburg im Breisgau; died November 28, 1941, there), was a German painter and graphic artist. Großmann grew up in an artistic environment. His grandfather was the Baden court painter Wilhelm Dürr the Elder, his mother was a portrait painter, and his uncle, Wilhelm Dürr the Younger, was a professor at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.

He studied medicine and philosophy in Munich from 1902 to 1904 before moving to Paris for five years, where he studied under Lucien Simon, among others. In Paris, he dedicated himself to landscape painting, strongly influenced by Paul Cézanne. He spent much time at the Café du Dôme, which he later described in his autobiography “Manege des Lebens.”

He traveled to Belgium and the Netherlands with the painter Jules Pascin and undertook further study trips to northern and southern France, as well as to Vienna, Budapest, and Stockholm. In 1910, he stayed briefly in Berlin before traveling on, including to the Engadine, Munich, Lake Tegernsee, and Italy.

After returning to Germany, Großmann lived in Berlin, where he worked as a graphic artist, creating book illustrations and portraits of famous personalities, which were published in magazines such as Simplicissimus. In 1928, he became a professor at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. Großmann was a member of the Berlin Secession and the German Künstlerbund.

After the Nazi takeover in 1933, Großmann was dismissed from his professorship in 1934 and withdrew to Freiburg. His works were labeled as “degenerate” by the Nazis, and in 1937, as part of the “Degenerate Art” campaign, over 500 of his works were confiscated from various museums and public collections. A part of these works was destroyed. Three of his works were displayed in the Nazi propaganda exhibition “Degenerate Art.”

Museums and public collections from which Großmann’s works were confiscated in 1937 as “degenerate”: New Department of the National Gallery Berlin at the Kronprinzenpalais, Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Kunsthalle Bremen, Silesian Museum of Fine Arts Breslau, Art Hut Chemnitz, Municipal Art Collection Chemnitz, Anhalt Gallery of Paintings Dessau, Municipal Art and Craft Museum Dortmund, Kupferstichkabinett Dresden, Painting Gallery Dresden, Art Collection of the City of Düsseldorf, Museum of Art and Regional History Erfurt, Museum Folkwang Essen, Städelsches Art Institute Frankfurt/Main, Municipal Art Collection Freiburg im Breisgau, Municipal Art Collection Gelsenkirchen, German Graphic Exhibition Görlitz, Art Collections of the University of Göttingen, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Provincial Museum Hanover, State Art Gallery Karlsruhe, Wallraf-Richartz Museum Cologne, Art Collection of the City of Königsberg, State Master Studio Königsberg, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum Krefeld, Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, Behnhaus Museum Lübeck, Kaiser Friedrich Museum Magdeburg, Municipal Museum Mainz, Municipal Art Hall Mannheim, State Graphic Collection Munich, Bavarian State Picture Collection Munich, Municipal Gallery Nuremberg, Museum of Art and Applied Arts Szczecin, Württemberg State Gallery Stuttgart, City Museum Ulm, Castle Museum Weimar, Nassau State Museum Wiesbaden, and Municipal Picture Gallery Wuppertal-Elberfeld.