1. Georg Lührig — Vita

2. The Estate

3. Poster Art in Dresden around 1900

4. Lührig as a lithographer

5. Dance of Death

6. Dresden’s Art Scene

7. Fresco Rübezahl

8. Art Nouveau jewellery and cutlery

9. At the Royal Court in Romania

10. Max Pietschmann. The Battle for the Fresco

11. Work in Progress – from the Studio to the Fresco

12. Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Humankind as their Master

1868
Heinrich Friedrich Georg Lührig was born in Göttingen on 26th January as the son of photographer Ferdinand Wilhelm Christian and Anne Johanne Dorothea Lührig (née Weber).

1883
First exhibition at the age of 15 with his main work Pair of lions.

1885–89
Studies in art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, producing numerous Impressionist watercolour studies of coffee houses.

1891
He exhibits his first monumental oil paintings Returning workers and Spring mood at the country road at the international Art Exhibition in Berlin and in the Glass Palace in Munich.

1891/92
Voluntary military service in Göttingen.

1892
Lührig celebrated his first major artistic success with five large chalk drawings from the Dance of Death series at the 3rd International Watercolour Exhibition in Dresden, followed by exhibitions in Munich, Magdeburg and Lübeck.

1894
Working as a freelance artist in Dresden, he is a member of the Association of Visual Artists of Dresden. He concentrates on lithography.

1895
Marriage with Dresden-based painter Else Franke.

1895–98
Lührig’s Lithographies get published in the journal PAN. He founds and illustrates the quarterly published magazine of the Dresden Association of Visual Artists.

1896
Traveling as a married couple to Rome and Florenz.

1896/97
The lithographic series The Poor Lazarus takes shape.

1897
Awarded the Small Gold Medal at the First International Art Exhibition in Dresden. Designed the place cards for the exhibition committee’s banquet. First stay in Fântânele, Romania, as an art teacher for the children of Crown Princess Lucie, and resignation from the Association of Visual Artists due to artistic differences.

1898
The first comprehensive appraisal is published in the journal Graphische Künste.

1898–1900
The couple Lührig lives in Hemeiuş, Romania, Lührig has his own atelier in the parc of Fântânele. Birth of the children Samfira (1898) and Ferdinand (1900).

1901
The Dresden State Art Collections purchase the painting Pelican.

1902–08
Lührig founds his own “painting and drawing school for women” in Dresden.

1903
Purchase of the painting Youth and Age by the Dresden State Art Collections. Setting up a summer studio in Rheinhausen near Göttingen, where he would work until 1943.

1904
Lührig wins the Gold Medal at the World’s Fair in St. Louis for his series of graphics The Poor Lazarus. His designs for the frescoes Wanderer I and Wanderer II are also selected to decorate the Royal Ministry of Culture in Dresden. It takes four years before the commission is finally approved.

1906/07
A ten-month stay in Romania as a guest of King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth I. Through the Queen’s intervention, Lührig is granted access to monasteries in the Carpathians. In 1906, his masterpiece, the painting Archimandrit Nifon from Sinaia, is created.

1908–12
Work on the two frescoes in the stairwell of the Ministry of Culture, now under the titles The Day and The Night. Both frescoes were completely destroyed in 1945.

1909/10
The Saxon Art Association is publishing the print series The Four Seasons as its annual bonus.

1909
Individual exhibition at the Karlsruhe and Darmstadt Art Associations, as well as at Galerie Banger in Wiesbaden.

1910
The Dessau State Art Collections acquire the painting The Two Old Men. Lührig travels to Egypt. He becomes a teacher at the Royal School of Applied Arts in Dresden. The fresco Rübezahl at Volksschule in Dresden-Cotta is created (and is partially destroyed in 1945). Teacher at the Royal School of Applied Arts in 1916.

1911
Hugo Erfurth takes several photos of Georg Lührig, as well as his children.

1912
The King of Saxony receives Georg Lührig.

1914
75 Artists from Dresden are petitioning the city of Dresden and the Saxon Ministry of the Interior for another monumental commission for Lührig.

1915/16
As a war painter in Champagne, France.

1915

Retrospective featuring 176 works at Galerie Arnold in Dresden. Participation in the major art exhibition marking the opening of the New Municipal Museum in Wiesbaden.

1916
Professor of Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, and Nature Studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. The Leipzig Art Association presents pictures from the war front.

1917
As a war painter in Romania and Syria.

1919–20
First Rector of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts after the war. Key reforms: democratic self-governance, restructuring of teaching, admission of women to the academy, appointment of Oskar Kokoschka.

1921–29
Regular stays in Romania.

From 1922
Member of Günther Fürst von Schönburg-Waldenburg’s discussion group, the Waldenburg Round Table.

1925
Founding member of the artists’ group Neue Gruppe 1925. Exhibitions at the Dresden Secession in 1919 and the Dresden Art Society

1928
Honorary Award from the Academic Council for the 1894 painting Blossoming Hedge and its acquisition by the City of Dresden.

1929
Study trip to the monasteries of Mount Athos, Greece. Special exhibition organised by the Saxon Art Association to mark Lührig’s 60th birthday, featuring works from all periods of his career.

1930
Acquisition of the painting Archimandrit Nifon from Sinaia by the City of Dresden.

1930–32
Work on the mural Fire, Water, Air and Men as their Army for the assembly hall of the Dreikönigsschule in Dresden (destroyed in 1945)

1932/33
Second term as principal from April 1932 to March 1933. Takeover of Otto Dix’s class in May 1933. Retirement in April 1934.

From 1934
Second residence and small studio in Rosenthal-Schweizermühle, Saxon Switzerland. Joint exhibition with Edmund Moeller at the Bautzen City Museum.

1936
Acquisition of the painting Winter Evening in Saxon Switzerland by the Saxon State Government.

1938
Exhibition at the Saxon Art Association and the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden to mark his 70th birthday. The exhibition will travel to the Leipzig Art Association, then to Göttingen, Bautzen, Freiberg and Oldenburg.

1940
Move to Lichtenstein, Saxony. Apartment in the Schönburg-Waldenburg family’s castle.

1945
The Russian occupation and the prince’s expropriation left Lührig in financial straits, compounded by the physical strain caused by hunger and the cold during the winter of 1946–47.

1946/47
Exhibitions at the Castle Museum Hinterglauchau.

1948
Death of his wife, Else Lührig, on 1 July.

1956
Four prints from the series The Poor Lazarus in an exhibition at the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

1957
On 3 March, he attends the opening of his exhibition at the Schloßberg Museum in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz). It was Lührig’s last public appearance.

1957
Georg Lührig dies on 21 March. The funeral takes place in Lichtenstein, Saxony, where he lived.

In early 1959, Ferdinand Lührig, as the sole heir, entrusted his father’s estate to the care of the Museum in the castle Hinterglauchau. Efforts by his son, Helmut Lührig, to obtain an export licence to the Federal Republic of Germany failed, as the estate was declared a protected cultural asset of the GDR in 1980. 1988 an export licence for the majority of the estate was negotiated. The deal stipulated that ten of Lührig’s works would remain in the museum as a donation and 195 as loans. The loans were returned by 1990.

From 1896 onwards, the Dresden Poster developed its own distinctive character. It is characterised by a flat style, clear colours and sparing use of Art Nouveau elements, as well as a narrative visual language. Various factors were decisive for this particular development, such as the interplay between museum collections, galleries and educational institutions, as well as the existence of an open cultural scene. In addition, there were open-minded clients and experienced printing workshops. The new printing technique, colour lithography, was used here for both applied and fine art – a dynamic field in which Lührig also worked creatively. Ultimately, however, the distinctive character of the Dresden Poster was unable to hold its own against the Munich Poster or the Berlin Functional Poster, which set new standards around 1910.

From 1894 onwards, Lührig lived in Dresden. His artistic focus was lithography. He taught himself the technical processes and developed his own style in the process. By 1898, he had produced around 50 lithographs, including his major work, the 16-part, socially critical cycle Der arme Lazarus (Poor Lazarus), with which Lührig finally made a name for himself.

Lührig first gained widespread recognition in 1892 with his Dance of Death series. In 15 large chalk studies, he depicts Death in everyday scenes. The originals were stolen around 1990. The preparatory sketches preserved here give a vivid impression of the lost originals.

The art historian Kuno Graf von Hardenberg described a group of young artists who had a decisive influence on Dresden’s art scene around 1900 as the “Phalanx of the Strong”: Hans Unger, Sascha Schneider, Richard Müller, Oskar Zwintscher and Georg Lührig. As a lithographer and initiator of the quarterly journal of the Dresden Association of Visual Artists, Lührig carried out pioneering work. From 1899 to 1912, he caused a sensation at various exhibitions with his works from Romania. In 1916, he was appointed to the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where he served as a professor of painting, drawing, graphic art and natural studies until 1934, and which he headed as director on two occasions.

Rübezahl, a mountain spirit from the Giant Mountains, is described in legends as benevolent, though at times also dangerous. In 1909, Lührig was commissioned to create the fresco based on this motif; after some preparatory work, he painted it on the exterior wall of the primary school in Dresden-Cotta in just 14 days. It was partially destroyed in 1945. The sketch, measuring 6 × 2.41 m and corresponding to the original dimensions, shows what his fresco once looked like.

In the wake of the Secession movements sweeping across Germany, the Association of Visual Artists of Dresden was formed in 1893. Its members emphasised individuality and turned away from academic art. They pursued the goal of life as a complete work of art, a central tenet of Art Nouveau. Thus, in addition to exquisite objects, they also designed everyday utensils with simple, affordable designs for mass production. Art was intended to enhance life in all its aspects, from jewellery to tableware.

Lührig travelled to Romania for the first time in 1897 to work for a few weeks as an art teacher to the children of Princess Lucie von Schönburg-Waldenburg. He subsequently decided to move to Romania with his wife, the painter Else Franke. Three productive years followed, during which many of his major works, such as The Pelican and Age and Youth, were created. The unfamiliar landscape and its nature-loving people became important sources of inspiration for the artist.

When Max Pietschmann won the Grand Prize at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1889, a travel grant took him to Italy, where he also visited the Cyclops Coast in Sicily. Inspired by the legends surrounding the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, he created his first large-scale work. In Dresden, he was a founding member of the Secessionist movement, which Lührig also joined. Both were colleagues as well as rivals in the struggle for artistic independence and a reputation as independent artists.

With his designs Wanderer I and Wanderer II, Lührig won the competition in 1904 to decorate the stairwell in what was then the Ministry of Culture, now the seat of the Saxon State Chancellery. As intrigues were plotted against him for four years, Lührig had to wait until 1908 to take on the commission. Instead of Wanderer I, which Lührig refused to alter, he devised a completely new concept based on the opposition of day and night. As Day – Victory of Light, Wanderer II was placed on the larger wall; opposite it, on the smaller wall, was Night, Twilight – Longing. Both frescoes were destroyed in 1945.

Lührig received his last major commission in 1930 for the assembly hall of the Dreikönigsschule in Dresden. The 4.50 × 7 m mural depicts the cycle of creation and decay: at the centre sits Mother Earth, surrounded by the other personified elements. From her, children, growing ever older, climb a rock. An additional symbolic layer is provided by the philosopher Diogenes, who, with a lamp in his hand, is searching for the “true human being”. The mural was destroyed in 1945.