Franz Skarbina

Franz Skarbina (24 February 1849 – 18 May 1910) was a German impressionist painter, draftsman, etcher and illustrator.

Life Born in Berlin, he was the son of a goldsmith from Zagreb. From 1865 to 1869, he studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts. After graduation, he spent two years as a tutor to the daughters of Count , during which time he travelled to Dresden, Vienna, Venice, Munich, Nuremberg and Merano. In 1877, he had acquired the funds to make a year-long study trip to the Netherlands, Belgium and France, where he came under the influence of impressionism.

He became an assistant teacher at the Prussian Academy in 1878 and, in 1881, he taught anatomical drawing at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin.

In 1901, he gave private lessons to Canada’s first female battlefield artist Mary Riter Hamilton.

He died at his home in Berlin, from an acute kidney ailment, and is buried in the Old Cemetery of St. Jacobkirche. All of the items in his estate were destroyed during World War II.

Selected paintings

Nazi-looted art In 2016 Skarbina's Nach Hause was the object of a lawsuit filed by a Holocaust victim's son who was trying to locate the painting. David Toren requested that the Berlin auction house Villa Grisebach reveal the buyers of the Skarbina as well as two works by Beckmann.