Pamono Hans Christiansen, Still Life, Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Darmstadt, Mathildenhöhe> Impressionist|Painting

Flensburg 1866 – 1945 Wiesbaden

Large Still Life

Oil on cardboard

Monogrammed lower left

Size: 94 x 61 cm

Frame: 102 x 69 cm

Provenance: Artist’s family, private collection, Darmstadt

Good original condition (see photos)

Authenticity is confirmed in writing.

Hans Christiansen graduated from the Munich School of Applied Arts in 1888. After a trip to Italy, he worked as a decorative painter in Hamburg. He was in contact with the Volkskunst Association and devoted himself to the study of nature. In 1892, he published his model work, New Flax Ornaments. In 1895, he gave up his profession and went via Antwerp to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian and met his future wife.

He designed collector’s cards for Stollwerck scrapbooks on behalf of the Cologne chocolate producer Ludwig Stollwerck, including the “Constellations” series for Stollwerck’s Collector’s Album No. 2 from 1898.

In 1899, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine appointed him to the Darmstadt Artists’ Colony on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. Along with Joseph Maria Olbrich and Peter Behrens, he was one of the first seven members and designed decorative furniture, ceramics, stained glass, and Art Nouveau jewelry.

As part of the artists’ colony’s first exhibition, “Dokument Deutscher Kunst” (Document of German Art), in 1901, the artists built fully designed residential buildings. Hans Christiansen also designed his own house, which he called “Villa in Roses” because the rose served as the leitmotif for the interior design of all the rooms in the villa. He also worked as an artist for the Blankenese wallpaper manufacturer Wilhelm Iven. He designed a series of wallpaper patterns. During this time, he also created two pictures of Dora Iven, a factory owner’s daughter at the time, who was sixteen years old. He also worked as a graphic designer for the magazine Die Jugend. from 1911, he taught at the Wiesbaden School of Arts and Crafts. He was a member of the Wiesbaden Free Artists’ Association.

Due to his artistic style and his marriage to a Jewish woman, he was excluded from membership in the Reich Chamber of Culture during the so-called Third Reich, which amounted to a professional ban.