Friedrich August von Kaulbach

Friedrich August von Kaulbach (2 June 1850 – 26 July 1920) was a German portraitist and historical painter.

Along with Franz von Lenbach and Franz von Stuck, he was known as one of the "Malerfürsten" (Enghlish: painter princes) and was one of the highest paid portrait painters in Germany. His works were commissioned by the uppermost social circles there and in America. Several stays in Paris followed. In 1886, he was appointed Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and was ennobled. He was also a member of the Prussian Academy of Art in Berlin.

Personal life In 1872, he married Anna Johanne Wilhelmine Lahmeyer (1849–1925), though the couple later divorced. On 15 May 1897, he married Frida Scotta, a famous Danish violist whom he had met while she was touring in Germany. He an Frida had three daughters: Doris (1898–1950), Henriette (1900–1992), and Mathilde (1904–1986). Henriette, or Hedda, became a renowned painter in Munich and Amsterdam. Their youngest daughter, Mathilde, became a singer and married the painter Max Beckmann. Mathilde and Max stayed at the family villa in Ohlstadt frequently during the 1920s and 30s, where Beckmann used von Kaulbach's former art studio. Since 1997, it has been a museum, showing thirty of his paintings, a number of drawings, and his studio which is maintained in its original state.

Selected paintings