August Wilhelm Leu (24 March 1818 – 20 July 1897) was a German landscape painter of the Romantic school. Most of his pictures are large-format and depict scenes in Norway and the Alps.
Biography Leu was born in Münster. He was a pupil of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, a landscape painter of the Düsseldorf school.A. Hk., "Leu, August Wilhelm", Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon, 2nd ed. (1915–30), Volume XV: Kvadratrod – Ludmila, p. 724, online at Project Runeberg .Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 6th ed. (1902–13), Volume 12: L – Lyra, pp. 456–57 .
Leu travelled in Norway in 1843 and 1847, and later travelled widely in the Alps. His Norwegian paintings raised awareness in Germany of that country's scenery. He lived for a time in Brussels, then returned to Düsseldorf; in 1855 he received an honourable mention at the Paris Exposition.Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 6 (1856) p. 212 . In 1882 he moved to Berlin, where he became a royal professor and a member of the Academy of Art;Catalogue of the Art Department of the Eighth Cincinnati Industrial Exposition, 1880, Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1880, , p. 5. he was also a member of the Vienna, Amsterdam and Brussels Academies."Leu, August (Wilhelm)", Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, ed. John Denison Champlin, Jr. and Charles C. Perkins, (1913 ed.), New York: Scribner's, , Volume 3, p. 72.Clara Erskine Clement Waters and Laurence Hutton, Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works: A Handbook Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches, 5th ed. Boston: Osgood, 1889, , p. 63. He received several gold medals in Berlin and was awarded the Belgian Order of Leopold.
His son, also named August Leu (1852–76) studied under him and was a landscape and animal painter. Leu died in Seelisberg, Switzerland.
Selected works Hardangerfjord im Sonnenlicht (1849), Kunstverein Bremen (1849), now Private Collection in Norway Norwegian Landscape with Waterfall (1849) Sognefjord (1849) Hohe Göll at Berchtesgaden (1859) Oeschinen Lake (1876) Queen Joanne's Palace at Naples (1886) Pool at Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains (1888) On the Engstlenalp (1893) Königsee and Watzmann Norwegian High Plateau Sunset on the Coast at Sorrento
References
External links
August Wilhelm Leu at Van Ham auction house, Cologne August Wilhelm Leu at Christie's auction house, London and New York