Philipp Franck. A German Impressionist

About Philipp Franck

Philipp Franck (1860–1944), a native of Frankfurt, came to Berlin in the late 1880s and worked as a drawing teacher at the Royal Art School from 1902, serving as its director from 1915 to 1929. He was a co-founder of the Berlin Secession and a member of the German Artists’ Association.

Around 1900, he discovered the Havel landscape around Potsdam as a subject for his art. His Wannsee paintings offer a glimpse into two worlds: the traditional way of life in the historic centre of the former fishing village of Stolpe and the villa culture of the Colonie Alsen with its magnificent gardens. In the village of Stolpe, Franck was fascinated by the picturesque farmhouses, men and women at work, village children bathing and fishing boats on Lake Stölpchen – all set against a backdrop of peaceful nature.

With the establishment of the Colonie Alsen on the Great and Little Wannsee, the village began to change: Numerous craft and horticultural businesses settled in the village, and the village population, having attained prosperity, increasingly replaced their simple farmhouses with more modern buildings. Philipp Franck noted in retrospect: “The old village of Stolpe is no more. […] The idyll of yesteryear is over.”

But new motifs also emerged: “Above the Great Wannsee, however, the clouds drift in their former splendour. Sport is flourishing. The white sails billow. The roses in Arnold’s garden are in full bloom!”

Whilst fellow artists such as Oskar Begas, Anton von Werner, Carl Becker, Hugo Vogel and later Max Liebermann lived in the villa colony exclusively during the summer, Franck resided year-round between the colony and the village on Königstraße.

In addition to scenes from Wannsee, from the 1930s onwards Franck devoted himself to views of Potsdam, often painted from the Brauhausberg, looking out over St Nicholas’ Church, the railway bridge, industrial buildings and the River Havel.

The exhibition showcases Franck’s passion for capturing the moods of different times of day and seasons, as well as changing weather conditions, which can often be experienced in subtle nuances within a single motif.

The exhibition is accompanied by lectures and guided tours of the exhibition and the locations featured in Franck’s works, led by Wolfgang Immenhausen. A catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition.