Jo Pieper

Jo Pieper, real name Josef Pieper, was born on August 1, 1893 in Recklinghausen and died on September 30, 1971 in Essen. He was a German painter and graphic artist.
After being born in the Ruhr region, Jo Pieper studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Dortmund between 1910 and 1914. He served as a soldier during the First World War. After the war, he made contact with the circle of artists around Mutter Ey in Düsseldorf and settled in Essen in 1922 as a freelance painter and graphic artist, where he designed posters, among other things. His well-known works include the stylized tulip from 1929, which was created for the opening of the Great Ruhr Horticultural Exhibition (GRUGA) and today serves as a symbol of the Grugapark and can be found on the Grugaturm, among other places.
In the 1930s, Pieper took on a teaching position as a part-time teacher at the Folkwangschule in Essen, where he taught freehand, plant and figurative drawing. He was also represented at the Great German Art Exhibitions in Munich from 1939 to 1944 and at the Third German Art Exhibition in the GDR in 1953.
In 1958, he returned to the Folkwang School of Design, where he taught nude and figurative drawing until shortly before his death, when he had to give up teaching for health reasons.
Pieper’s artistic interests included subjects such as gypsies, mother and child, portraits, nudes and landscapes of the North Sea. He also painted memories of his travels to Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Austria, whereby Paris and Tyrol in particular are clearly recognizable in his works.
He was a board member of the Ruhrländischer Künstlerbund Essen (RKB) and exhibited together with other artists such as Josef van Heekern at various exhibitions. Today, some of his works are in private ownership as well as in public collections, including the State Parliament and Ministry of Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as in the cities of Bochum, Düsseldorf, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Lünen.