Josef Block was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

Block was born in Bernstadt an der Weide (Bierutów)

Bierutów

Bierutów is a town in Oleśnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Bierutów. Prior to 1945 it was in Germany...

 in Prussian

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

 Silesia

Province of Silesia

The Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919.-Geography:The territory comprised the bulk of the former Bohemian crown land of Silesia and the County of Kladsko, which King Frederick the Great had conquered from the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th...

. He was a scholar of the Breslau (Wrocław) Art Academy, where his lifelong friendship with German dramatist Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann

Gerhart Hauptmann was a German dramatist and novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912.-Life and work:...

 was established. He continued his studies at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts; in the studio of his tutor Professor Bruno Piglhein, Block was involved in painting Piglhein's Jerusalem Panorama. On February 29, 1892, the Society of Visual Artists of Munich was founded in his studio at Munich's Theresienstrasse, which was to be the basis of the Munich Secession

Sezession

Secession refers to a number of modernist artist groups that separated from the support of official academic art and its administrations in the late 19th and early 20th century....

, a movement of artists who felt that art was not sufficiently contemporary and open. This happened in preparation for the World Columbian Exposition 1893 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, where Block won a medal for his painting 'Twilight'.

In 1895 Block married Else Oppenheim, the daughter of banker and councilor of commerce Hugo Otto Oppenheim and a descendant of banker Joseph Mendelssohn

Joseph Mendelssohn

Joseph Mendelssohn was a German Jewish banker.He was the oldest son of the influential philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. In 1795, he founded his own banking house. In 1804, his younger brother Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the father of the composer Felix Mendelssohn, joined the company. The bank...

. After living in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 until 1896 he moved to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. He continued painting biblical histories, realistic genre paintings, portraits and still lifes, selling paintings in Germany and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Further expositions include the Grand Berlin Art Exposition and Paul Cassirer

Paul Cassirer

Paul Cassirer was a German art dealer and editor who played a significant role in the promotion of the work of artists of the Berlin Secession and of French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, in particular that of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne.- Starting out :Paul Cassirer started out as...

's parlor. Block was also a co-founder of the Berlin Secession

Sezession

Secession refers to a number of modernist artist groups that separated from the support of official academic art and its administrations in the late 19th and early 20th century....

, a movement similar to the Munich Secession. Other members of the Berlin Secession include Lovis Corinth

Lovis Corinth

Lovis Corinth was a German painter and printmaker whose mature work realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism....

, Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker best known for his etching and lithography.-Biography:...

, and Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...

. Block liked traveling and was a passionate photographer. Due to his Jewish ancestry was persecuted by the Nazis from 1933 and forced to sell paintings from his collection. His apartment at Derfflinger Str. 16 in Berlin was seized by the Generalbauinspektor under Albert Speer

Albert Speer

Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...

. He died in Berlin.

Selected works

• Christ and the Samaritan (1887)
• The last ray of sun (1888)
• Bathseba (1889)
• The lost son (1890 in Munich, 1891 golden medal in Berlin)
• Twilight (realistic interieur, 1893 medal in Chicago)
• The new master (Munich Secession 1894)
• Adulteress (1897)
• Saul and David (1899)
• Pietà (1902)
• Judith (1904-1905)
• South Italian Scene (around 1930)
• The scientist (1942)

Sources

• Lorenz, Detlef: Zur Biographie des schlesischen Malers Josef Block. In: Jahrbuch der Schlesischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau 42-44 (2001-2003) [2003], 709-714.
• Tschörtner, Heinz Dieter: Gerhart Hauptmanns letzter Jugendfreund Josef Block aus Bernstadt (1863-1943). In: Jahrbuch der Schlesischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau 38/39 (1997/1998) [1998], 773-781.