Arthur Illies

Karl Wilhelm Arthur Illies (9 February 1870 – 27 May 1952) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Life and work

He was born in Hamburg to Theodor Friedrich Wilhelm Illies, a merchant, and his wife, Albertine Mathilde née Schwarze. He attended the Johanneum then, at sixteen, began an apprenticeship as a decorative painter at the firm of . In the evenings he studied nude drawing with and, on Sundays, he studied animal drawing at the zoo with . In 1889, after passing his journeyman examination, he went to Munich for studies at the Königlichen Kunstgewerbeschule, where his primary instructor was Ludwig Lesker (1840-1890). The following year, he enrolled at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. There, he studied with Johann Caspar Herterich. As a result, he was dismissed from his teaching position and moved his family to Lüneburg.

Although he apparently received no special support from the Third Reich, his paintings were displayed at the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellungen from 1941 to 1944, and Joseph Goebbels bought one of his works in 1943. That same year, many of his paintings were destroyed by Allied bombing raids. In 1945, he lost his home and moved into a hotel. Increasing vision problems forced him to paint still-lifes.

In 1951, during an exhibition at the Museum of Ethnology, he was named an honorary member of the "Hamburg Artists' Association". He died in his studio in Lüneburg and was interred at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery. In 1955, a street was named after him in the Steilshoop district of Hamburg.