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- Hans Burgkmair the Elder
- Also known as
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Hans Burgkmair the Elder
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primary name: Burgkmair, Hans
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; printmaker; German; Male
- Life dates
- 1473-1531
- Biography
- Painter and printmaker. The foremost designer of woodcuts of Augsburg of his time, and together with Hans Holbein the Elder (q.v.) the most important painter of the early sixteenth century in the city. Trained with his father, the painter Thoman Burgkmair (q.v), and from 1488 to 1490, was apprenticed to Martin Schongauer in Colmar. Designed woodcuts for the leading presses in Augsburg throughout his career. He became a master in 1498, and had a short stay in Italy during 1507. Worked primarily for the emperor Maximilian from c.1508 to 1519, for whom he designed the 'Genealogy of the Habsburgs' of 1509-11, 'Der Weisskunig' of 1514-16, 'Der Theuerdank' of 1517 and the 'Triumphal Procession' of 1516-18. Burgkmair did not make engravings, and only one etching by him is recorded. Between 1508 and 1512, played a leading role, together with the printer Jost de Negker, in the development of printing in colour. He was particularly influential in the introduction of Italian Renaissance forms into Augsburg. As a painter, his most notable commissions were of religious works and portraits, such as the altarpiece of the 'Crucifixion' of 1519, which was executed for the Peutinger family (see 1988,0723.11), and 'Esther and Ahasuerus' of 1528 for Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria (both in Munich, Alte Pinakothek).
- Bibliography
- Rowlands, 1993, p. 46; T.Falk, 'Hans Burgkmair: Studien zu Leben und Werk des Augsburger Malers', Munich, 1968; G. Bartrum, 'German Renaissance Prints', 1995, p.130.
