Walter Becker - TWO LADIES 1952 signed .

Walter BECKER, 1893 EATING - 1984 TUTZING

Chalk lithograph, expressive depiction of two ladies.

70 x 50 cm on laid paper. Signed and dated 52 in pencil.

Area of the depiction somewhat darker than the edges (was probably framed).

The sheet slightly wavy.


Walter Becker August 1, 1893 in Essen - October 24, 1984 in Tutzing on Lake Starnberg was a German painter and graphic artist.

Becker was born in Essen. His father Eduard Becker was a blacksmith, his wife Johanna, née Eickmeyer, ran a grocery store. In Essen he attended the Humboldt Gymnasium and graduated with the 'one-year' degree. His father died in 1908 and his mother was concerned about a secure livelihood, so she chose the profession of elementary school teacher for her son Walter. The then drawing teacher Beckers tried unsuccessfully to persuade the mother to send the son to the arts and crafts school. From 1910 to 1913, Becker worked in department stores during the day and attended courses in commercial art and later in life drawing and wood carving at the School of Applied Arts in Essen in the evenings. During this time he won two competitions and received a scholarship.

In 1914 he was diagnosed with signs of tuberculosis. He spent the winter of 1914-15 convalescing in the Black Forest and was drafted into military service in 1915. For a short time, he was used on security duty as a "armless trooper" at the Alter Durlach train station. Due to his poor health, he was released from military service in 1915 and began to devote himself to art.

From 1915 to 1918 he studied at the Grand Ducal Baden Art School in Karlsruhe under Walter Conz. During this time he also met the sculptor Karl Albiker, as well as Vladimir von Zabotin and Rudolf Schlichter. Becker earned his living with ceramic work for the Majolika Manufaktur Karlsruhe, as well as with commercial graphic work for private individuals. During this time, Becker, Albiker and others, out of enthusiasm for the plays by Franz Graf von Pocci, designed complete sets, backdrops and figures with which they then performed Pocci's plays.

From 1919 numerous books with illustrations by Walter Becker were published.

In 1918 he came into contact with Wilhelm Fraenger through Wladimir von Zabotin and Rudolf Schlichter. In August 1918 Fraenger organized Becker's first graphic exhibition at the Kunstverein Heidelberg. From 1919 to 1920 Becker was a member of the Rih group in Karlsruhe. There was a lively exchange between Fraenger and the Rih group, so that the latter also gave lectures on exhibitions in the Moos gallery in Karlsruhe.

From 1922 to 1923 Becker studied at the Dresden Art Academy, where he was a master student in Karl Albiker's sculpture class. During this time, mainly graphic and only a few painterly works were created.

In 1923, Becker met Yvonne von König, née Tardif, while staying in a sanatorium in Oberstdorf. Yvonne von König was the adopted daughter of Leo von König. His first wife, the painter Mathilde Tardif, brought her daughter Yvonne into the marriage. In November 1923 Walter Becker married Yvonne von König. From the end of 1923 to the beginning of 1924 the couple lived in Berlin. In the spring of 1924 they moved to southern France and only returned to Germany in 1936. In Cassis, the couple acquired an outlying farm for lodging. Becker came into contact with numerous personalities such as André Derain, Jules Pascin and Georges Braque. A friendship developed especially with the poet and journalist Marcel Sauvage. In 1929 Becker portrayed Sauvage and won the first art prize of the city of Hanover in 1931 with this portrait.

During this time, Becker continued to work as an illustrator. In 1927, 50 pen and ink drawings were made for Dostoyevsky's notes from the cellar hole (Piper Verlag, Munich). In 1931 "The Book of the Riviera" (Piper Verlag, Munich) was published by Erika and Klaus Mann with illustrations by Henri Matisse, Rudolf Großmann, Martin Piper and Walter Becker.

Only a few paintings from this creative phase of Becker's in southern France are known.

In 1936, Walter and Yvonne Becker returned to Germany because "due to German foreign exchange controls, the previous option to transfer the income from their Berlin property to France was no longer available." hin, lived in Bertolt Brecht's house in Utting am Ammersee for three months before moving to Bühl in Baden. In 1938 the couple moved to Tutzing. An intimate connection developed with the cellist Ludwig Hoelscher, who lived in the immediate vicinity, and his wife Marion.

In 1937, as part of the Degenerate Art campaign, 19 works by Becker were confiscated. It is possible that Becker, following the advice of his father-in-law Leo von König, devoted himself to harmless landscape motifs and portrait compositions during these years. In 1941 Becker received a professorship at the Karlsruhe Art Academy. "But before he took up his post, Becker writes, his studio was sealed off by the SS from Berlin and he was 'forced to withdraw from the contract under covert threats'." Reichsleiter Baldur von Schirach organized exhibition Young Art in the German Reich in Vienna.

In 1951 Becker was appointed as a teacher at the Karlsruhe Art Academy and worked there until 1958. In 1952 he was appointed professor. In the 1950s he created more abstract works. In 1958, the year he left the Karlsruhe Academy, he moved to Tutzing after his wife Yvonne suddenly died in 1957. The acquaintance and friendship with the Hoelscher couple, and especially with Marion Hoelscher, became very important for Becker from then on. "[It was] a constant, sensitive encouragement to work, which Marion Hoelscher found out of the realization that Walter Becker would sink into depression without painting." Becker decorated the walls with frescoes. Until 1964-65 Becker was on Elba every year.
Since the 1960s, progressive impairment of vision has set in, almost leading to blindness. Becker gave up painting for the time being.
In 1974 the company moved to a retirement home in Diessen.
From 1976 Becker began to paint again. In the last years of his life and work, an abstract late work was created.
In terms of art history, Walter Becker belongs to the lost generation and to expressive realism.
Becker died in Tutzing on October 24, 1984.TEXT WIKIPEDIA