Hans Brasch, Large Expressionist Watercolor, 1927, Masters Student of Hans Thoma & Student of Ferdinand Hodler

Hans Brasch
Karlsruhe 1882 - 1973 Murrhardt
"Landschaft, 1927"
Watercolor on Japan paper
Signed and dated "1927" in the lower left corner
picture: 62,5 x 85,5 cm
Frame: 80 x 104 cm
Good condition, paper conditioned margins irregular


After an apprenticeship as a decorative painter in his father's business, Hans Brasch completed his studies in Karlsruhe at the Kunstgewerbeschule from 1898-1900 and at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste with Ludwig Schmid-Reutte, Friedrich Fehr and Hans Thoma, whose master student he was from 1904-1908. This was followed by study visits to Paris and Geneva with the famous Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler. In 1913 he briefly took up residence in Mannheim. He married Emmy Wiedersheim and moved to Frankfurt am Main. There he formed a studio community with August Babberger and Rudolf Gudden in the Lichtenstein house at Römerberg 11.
During the First World War he did military service from 1914 to 1918. In 1920 Brasch bought an old Black Forest house in Außerurberg (Sankt Blasien) to work there. His artist friends R. Gudden, R. Hoffmann and A. Babberger each purchased a Black Forest house in the nearby hamlet of Höll. The stay in the southern Black Forest, Goethe's theory of colors and anthroposophy increasingly determined his artistic development from the mid-1920s. In 1930 he moved with his family to Stuttgart.
Brasch died at the age of 91 in Murrhardt near Stuttgart. His artistic estate is in the Hans Thoma Art Museum in Bernau in the Black Forest.
Brasch specialized in portraits, but also painted flower pictures, mountain and forest landscapes in clear forms and expressive coloring. From his time in St. Blasien he began to paint mainly in watercolor. During the Third Reich, Brasch's works were defamed as "degenerate" and his paintings were confiscated. The artist's estate is housed in the Hans Thoma Art Museum, Bernau in the Black Forest, which is holding an exhibition of his works from February to April 2023.