Käthe Härlin
Käte Schaller-Härlin, née Härlin, (* October 19, 1877 in Mangalore, Karnataka, India; † May 9, 1973 in Stuttgart-Rotenberg; full name: Katharina Maria Schaller-Härlin) was a German painter known for her portraits, still lifes and monumental church paintings.
Härlin was the fourth of eight children of the Protestant pastor and missionary to India Emmerich Härlin and his wife Anna Härlin, née Nast. She grew up in Gruibingen. Her younger sister was the ceramist Dorkas Reinacher-Härlin.
Härlin attended her uncle’s secondary school in Göppingen, the Härlinsche Töchterinstitut. Around 1893, she began her studies at the Stuttgart School of Arts and Crafts under Magdalene Schweizer. At the Württembergischer Malerinnenverein she took lessons in nude drawing with Rudolf Yelin the Elder. From 1900 to 1904 she studied at the Damenakademie des Münchner Künstlerinnenvereins and published her first illustrations in the magazines Jugend and Meggendorfer Blätter. Her study trips took her to Italy and France.
In the summer semester of 1909, she took lessons with Adolf Hölzel at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. In 1911, she married the Stuttgart art historian and art dealer Hans Otto Schaller, with whom she had a daughter, Sibylle. Hans Otto Schaller fell before Ypres in 1917.
Schaller-Härlin was primarily known as a portrait painter and was able to make a living and raise her daughter thanks to a large network. She painted portraits of many well-known personalities, including Theodor Heuss and Elisabeth Mann.
In 1944, her house and studio in Stuttgart were destroyed, whereupon she moved to Eschach. In 1950, she moved to the Villa Schaller on Rotenberg in Stuttgart, where she lived until her death. Käte Schaller-Härlin continued to paint mainly still lifes into old age.
Together with the church architect Martin Elsaesser, she created wall and glass paintings for various Protestant churches in Württemberg, such as the Protestant parish church in Stuttgart-Gaisburg (1913), the Protestant Martinskirche in Oberesslingen (1918), the Protestant St. Blasius Church in Holzelfingen (1909), the Protestant Lutherkirche in Baden-Baden Lichtental (1907 and 1910) and the Eberhardskirche in Tübingen (1911).
Her work includes illustrations, sacred wall and glass paintings, portraits, still lifes and landscape paintings. Giotto studies in Florence shaped her monumental painting style, which was based on Art Nouveau painting and was continually modernized through encounters with works by Henri Matisse, Maurice Denis and Paul Cézanne. As a woman, she played a key role in sacred wall and window design.
Käte Schaller-Härlin’s grave is located in the Prague Cemetery in Stuttgart.