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Hans Thoma | The Twelve Months

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Hans Thoma | January

Born in the Black Forest to a family of manual laborers, German painter, Hans Thoma (1839-1924) studied lithography in Basel in 1853, and after 1855 worked in Furtwangen with a miniaturist, painting watches and jewelry cases.
He entered the Karlsruhe Kunstschule in 1858 where his teachers included Ludwig Des Coudres, Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, and Hans Canon. His major interest during this period was landscape.

In 1867 he went to the Dusseldorf Academy, where he became acquainted with Otto Scholderer.
He visited Paris with Scholderer in 1868; the work of Gustave Courbet had a deep influence on him.

From 1868-1870 he lived in Bernau and Karlsruhe; he spent the summer months with his mother and sister, and in the winter taught at the Karlsruhe Kunstschule.
In 1870 he moved to Munich, where he became associated with the Leibl circle and with the painters Viktor Müller, Wilhelm Steinhausen, and Bocklin.
In 1874 Thoma went to Italy with Emil Lugo and Albert Lang; in Rome he met Marees. Returning to Germany in 1876, he lived in Frankfurt, where he shared a studio with Wilhelm Steinhausen.
The following year he married his student Bonicella Beertender.

Hans Thoma | February

Thoma's oeuvre of naturalistic portraits, landscapes, and still lifes expanded to include mythological scenes inspired by the work of Böcklin.

He returned to Italy many times; in 1880 he stayed in Rome for several months, and in 1886 he visited Adolf von Hildebrand in Florence.
The 1890 exhibition of his paintings at the Munich Kunstverein brought wider recognition of his work. In 1899 he moved to Karlsruhe, where he had been named professor of the Kunstschule and director of the Karlsruhe Gallery.

His seventieth birthday was marked by the founding of the Thoma museum in Karlsruhe. Shortly before his death, major retrospective exhibitions of his work were held in Basel and Zürich. | Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications

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