Köllner, Augustus:

$4,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

[SIX PEN-AND-INK FIGURE STUDIES BY AUGUSTUS KOLLNER]. Six large figure drawings by German-American artist Augustus Köllner, depicting male nudes in various poses: standing, lying, and sitting. Though Köllner is best known for his lithographs and watercolors, he also produced etchings, woodcuts, and drawings, preferring pen and ink as his medium for these. Aside from the earliest of these studies, dated March 1837, the drawings were executed in Philadelphia during the 1860s, after Köllner's commercial ventures had mostly subsided. "German-born Augustus Theodore Frederick Köllner arrived in America in 1839 and enjoyed an artistically fruitful career in this country until his death in 1906....Associated at one time or another with each of the major lithographic firms in Philadelphia, he worked his way from journeyman to artist, to chief artist, to partner. Ultimately, he owned his own establishment" - Wainwright. After the Civil War his career flagged, but because of his wife's inheritance he was able to pick and choose what projects he accepted. This financial freedom also allowed him the luxury to paint at leisure, and in his later years he generated a tremendous amount of work, which he often kept bound up in albums.An attractive and unusual example of Köllner's artistic abilities.

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