Werner Schramm was a German painter. He was born as a son of merchants. After a classical education, he entered the school of Decorative Arts in Düsseldorf. In 1919 he began painting again after having been interrupted by the First World War. He was influenced by German expressionism and also by the first expressions of abstract art. The discovery of the Isenheim Altarpiece

Isenheim Altarpiece

The Isenheim Altarpiece is an altarpiece painted by the German artist Matthias Grünewald in 1506-1515. It is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, now in France....

 of Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Grünewald or "Mathis" , "Gothart" or "Neithardt" , , was a German Renaissance painter of religious works, who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the expressive and intense style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century.Only ten paintings—several consisting...

, which was temporarily exhibited at the Munich Pinacothek

Alte Pinakothek

The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum situated in the Kunstareal in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of Old Master paintings...

, was a revelation to him and he started his first attempts in middle-ages techniques: a well performed drawing on a priming of chalk or plaster with a mixture of oil and yolk of egg as paint.

In 1920 he was appointed decorator at the theatre of Düsseldorf. After his marriage in 1925 to Liselotte Heckmann

Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann

Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann was a German painter. She was born in Duisburg as the daughter of an old family of merchants. An ancestor on her father’s side was a draughtsman at the court of the Tsar in Moscow. Directly after secondary education she followed painting classes...

 he lived for a year near Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 and then five years in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. During that time he journeyed many times across France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. In 1929 he went to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. From 1931 to 1970 he lived with his family in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

.

Sources

• Werner Schramm, Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann, Otto Brües: Werner Schramm und Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann. Ratingen 1965, ASIN: B0000BNIBW
• Werner Schramm, Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann, Otto Brües: Werner Schramm und Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann (2nd edition). Ratingen 1976
• Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann: Werner Schramm, Liselotte Heckmann — Bühnenbilder und Figurinen 1920-1925. 1991, ISBN 978-3929945041
• Liselotte Schramm-Heckmann: Jugenderinnerungen in Bernd Braumüller: Draeger — Valette, Zwei Berliner Familien und Ihre Nachkommen. Rotenburg 2000