Emil Rieck (Ger1852 - 1939) - Forest clearing with roaring deer and his hinds

Animalistic painting with roaring deer and his hinds was executed by good listed German animale, landscape and theater painter Emil Rieck (1852 in Hamburg - 1939 in Moritzburg).

Emil Rieck was initially an assistant painter at the city theater in Hamburg. At the age of 17, the young Rieck applied to the Dresdner Schauspielhaus, where he got a job as an assistant painter in the summer of 1869. His teacher was the local court theater painter Günter Ludwig Walter, whose position as director in the painting room he took over four years later. In 1875 he became a theater painter at the Albert Theater in Dresden. In 1879, the later director Nikolaus Graf von Seebach brought him to the Royal Court Theater, today the Dresden Semper Opera, as a theater and court painter, decorative painter As a theater painter, Rieck created numerous and much admired decorations for plays and operas.

Emil Rieck´s pictures are now traded in numerous German and foreign auction houses. In addition, pictures of the Rieck hang in the Moritzburg city administration in the local town hall in the Schloßallee and with Prince Alexander of Prussia, who at the time acquired a watercolor from the artist. Around 1900 Rieck created two views of Lauterbach Castle, of which an enlargement of an original painting was handed over to the local support association in 2014.

But Rieck also worked as an illustrator. For example, he drew postcards from the series: Bazaar for the suffering childhood for the printing and publishing house C. C. Meinhold & Sons, Dresden. This was under the protectorate of Her Majesty the Queen of Saxony. The artist also drew postcards for the Universal Postal Union. One example shows such a card that he painted for the Dresden Press Association on the occasion of its 1904 ball festival, "Erika with champagne glass", the cheerful picture of a lady in a big ball gown.

Emil Rieck decided in 1910 to give up his profession as a theater painter and retire into private life. At this time he left Dresden to settle in Moritzburg. From 1913 he lived in his newly built house in today´s August-Bebel-Strasse number eight. During the Moritzburg time, the painter was able to fully pursue his predilection for landscape, animal and genre painting. Most of his works were created during this time.

Literature: Ries, 1992; Wikipedia in online.

Inscription: signed lower right.

Technique: oil on canvas, original period frame.

Measurements: unframed w 31 1/2" x 23 2/3" (80 x 60 cm); framed w 37 3/4" x h 29 7/8" (96 x 76 cm).

Condition: in very good condition.