Franz Nölken

Franz Nölken (born 5 May 1884 – died 4 November 1918) was a German Expressionist painter; occasionally associated with Die Brücke, an artists' society in Dresden.

Biography Franz Noelken was born 5 May, 1884 in Hamburg. At the age of sixteen, he began attending the Johanneum, a liberal arts gymnasium. On the advice of Alfred Lichtwark, the Director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, he took classes from Arthur Siebelist, who eschewed the Academic approach and took his students to paint en plein aire.

He joined the in 1903 and, the following year, had his first exhibition at the prestigious with fellow students Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, Fritz Friedrichs, Walter Alfred Rosam and .

He became a teacher at a private art school for women in 1912. He also made friends with the composer, Max Reger (Nölken was an excellent amateur pianist), and painted numerous portraits of him, one of which was purchased by one of Nölken's patrons, Oskar Troplowitz, to hang in his billiard room. In 1914, he made another trip to Paris.

He almost avoided service in World War I, but was drafted in 1917 and killed a week before the war ended, near La Capelle on the Belgian border. Two streets are named after him, in the Barmbek district of Hamburg and in Soest.

Selected paintings