Hans Brasch

Hans Brasch (2 April 1882 – 13 May 1973) was a German expressionist painter. Since his death, his reputation has been based primarily on his portraits. Other favourite subjects included still lifes of flowers and landscapes featuring the hill country and forests of south-west Germany. Readers of the (by English standards rather mildly) satirical magazine Fliegende Blätter were also able to enjoy his line drawings during the early decades of the twentieth century.^[1][2][3]

Life

Hans Brasch was born in Karlsruhe. He was one of four siblings, but the others were all girls. His father - another Johannes Brasch - was a painter and decorator who also produced stage sets for the city theatre and was in addition a talented amateur producer of his own works. His talents were acknowledged and appreciated in and around Karlsruhe. The father had very firmly held views about the path that his son's career should follow: little Hans should prepare to take over his father's business. The father would be disappointed.^[2]

He attended school locally and then moved on to

Till now the focus of Brasch's work had been on portraiture and oil paintings, but as the 1920s opened up he became, in addition, a painter of flowers, forests and hillscapes. He turned increasingly to watercolors, no doubt attracted by the relative portability of the necessary equipment and supplies when traipsing past hillside meadows, but also attracted by the atmosphere and textures possible with the medium, along with the more nimble use of colour which his works from the period demonstrate.^[1][2] His canvases from this period use only "Japanese" Washi paper, which facilitated the delicacy and precision associated with the artists' work.^[2] He continued to be relatively catholic in respect of modality and subject matter, however. One piece which resonated powerfully with contemporary art lovers and the wider public ever since is his 1925/26 mural construct for the unusual entrance hall (more recently deployed as a restaurant) at Bad Orb's remarkable railway station. He used the generous space availability to include a depiction of the seasons, of the thermal springs (from which presumably many of the train travellers had come to receive their cures) and of the townsfolk at their jobs and professions.^[4]

In 1930, Hans Brasch left the idyllic

Hans Brasch died at Murrhardt, a short distance outside Stuttgart, on 13 May 1973, approximately six weeks after his ninety-first birthday.^[1]

References