Biography – Moritz Meurer

1839

Moritz Meurer is born on 9 April in Waldenburg (Saxony) as the fourth son of an archdeacon. Because of his father's profession and special interest in church architecture, Meurer comes into contact with art even as a child. He attends the humanist grammar school in Zwickau.

1856

He enrols as a student of painting at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in Dresden. His teachers are Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and Ludwig Richter. During the summer months, Richter takes his students on walks through the countryside around Dresden; the excursions may well have been what sparked Meurer's interest in nature. The photographer August Kotzsch also acquired a grounding in art as one of Ludwig Richter's students.

1860

Meurer switches to the Akademie der Künste in Munich and completes his studies there. He executes a painting for the church at Callenberg, which can still be seen today.

1867

Meurer moves to Berlin, where he receives numerous commissions for paintings, e.g. for the Prussian Labour and Culture Ministry, the Moabit Criminal Court, the Lichterfelde Cadet School, the administrative headquarters of the Berlin-Hamburg Railway Company and the villa of a banking magnate called Liebermann. All of the paintings done in Berlin were destroyed during the Second World War.

1869

Appointment as a teacher – initially on a temporary basis – at the Unterrichtsanstalt des Königlichen Kunstgewerbemuseums in Berlin.

1871

Appointment to the permanent teaching staff of the Institute.

1872

First trip to Italy, which lasts almost a year. During it, Meurer makes numerous studies and sketches of heritage sites and landscapes.

1875–77

More trips to Italy with Unterrichtsanstalt students; this time the focus is on Renaissance murals and ceiling paintings.

1878

Publication of Meurer's first book: Italienische Flachornamente aus der Zeit der Renaissance, Intarsien, Flachreliefs, eingelegte Marmorarbeiten etc. zum Gebrauch für Architekten und Handwerker als Vorlagen für Kunstgewerbliche und Zeichenschulen.

1878/79

Meurer becomes director of the Unterrichtsanstalt Institute "Decorative Painting" workshop.

1881

Inauguration of the new Arts and Crafts Museum building (present-day Martin-Gropius-Bau). Meurer is involved in the interior design (Majolica Saal). At one of the events staged to mark the occasion, he is awarded a professorship.

1883

Meurer leaves the Unterrichtsanstalt des Königlichen Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin to settle in Italy.

Ab 1884

He makes the Via Margutta in Rome his permanent base. At first, Meurer devotes himself to his own artistic work, coupled with a study of Italy's rich botanical life. Documents in the Berlin University of the Arts archive, such as letters, thematic essays, reports, etc., paint a detailed picture of Meurer's plans to introduce the study of natural forms to the art school curriculum.

1889

Meurers kunstpädagogische Schrift Das Studium der Naturformen an kunstgewerblichen Schulen. Vorschläge zur Einführung eines vergleichenden Unterrichts erscheint. Der Text erregt große Aufmerksamkeit, Aufenthalte Meurers in Dresden, Karlsruhe und Genua schließen sich an, wo er wahrscheinlich seine Ideen vortrug.

1890

The Prussian House of Representatives approves funds for Meurer to create a nature studies class with teaching materials developed and compiled in Rome. The first scholarship-holders arrive in Rome to assist in Meurer's project.

1891

Moritz Meurer is appointed president of the Deutscher Künstlerverein – the German Artists Union – in Rome.

1891/92

Meurer introduces the study of plant forms in the lower school and the day school of the Unterrichtsanstalt in Berlin.

1892

Karl Blossfeldt accepts Meurer's invitation to join him in Rome as a modeller.

1893

Meurer repeats the courses he introduced at the Berlin Unterrichtsanstalt in 1891/92; he is joined by the scholarship-holder and painter Heinrich Homolka.

1895

Publication of Pflanzenformen. Vorbildliche Beispiele zur Einführung in das ornamentale Studium der Pflanze.

1896

Publication of the essay Die Ursprungsformen des griechischen Akanthusornamentes und ihre natürlichen Vorbilder.

1899

Publication of Meurer’s Pflanzenbilder. Ornamental verwerthbare Naturstudien für Architekten, Kunsthandwerker, Musterzeichner pp. with photographs by Karl Blossfeldt. On a landing in the new House of Representatives in Berlin is a bronze torch carrier whose design and realization stems from Meurer and Blossfeldt.

1902

An essay is published in the yearbook of the German Archaeological Institute about the gold jewellery found in Mycenaean shaft graves (Vol. XVII, 1st issue, 10 April); more archaeological essays follow in 1912 ("Zu den Sarkophagen von Kazomenai", Vol. 27) and 1914 ("Form und Herkunft der mykenischen Säule", Vol. 29).

1903

Meurer and Blossfeldt take part in the arts and crafts exhibition in Leipzig, which has as its focus "Die Pflanze in ihrer dekorativen Verwertung".

1909

Publication of the comprehensive textbook Vergleichende Formenlehre des Ornamentes und der Pflanze. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Entwicklungsgeschichte der architektonischen Kunstformen and an illustrative exhibition at the Akademische Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin.

1910

Official end of cooperation between Meurer and the Unterrichtsanstalt des Königlichen Kunstgewerbemuseums in Berlin.

1914

Meurer leaves Rome and relocates to Dresden, where he is close to his brothers Siegfried and Coelestin.

1916

Moritz Meurer dies in Dresden on 3 November. Two years later, according to his wishes, his mortal remains are buried in the Protestant cemetery in Rome.