Alexander Frenz 1861-1941

Alexander Frenz (Rheydt, 1861 – Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth, 1941) was a German painter whose work moves between Symbolism and modernity.

After initial studies in Rheydt, Frenz enrolled in 1879 at the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied landscape painting, illustration, and printmaking, and came under the influence of the Düsseldorf School. He quickly distinguished himself as one of the most accomplished students of his year. Upon completing his studies, he spent a year in Munich as a pupil of Franz von Lenbach before returning to Düsseldorf. These years proved to be among his most creative, during which he produced, among other works, illustrations for biographies and poems by Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Euphémie Adler Champ Ballestrem.

Frenz undertook several study trips, notably to Capri, Rome, and Naples. His encounter with the Old Masters and with ancient art would later inspire his Arcadian scenes. In 1902, he succeeded Franz Reiff as professor responsible for teaching figure and landscape drawing at the Technical University of Aachen. In 1909, frustrated by the rigid constraints of academic teaching, he resigned from his position. He thereafter worked primarily in Düsseldorf, and for a period also in Bonn as a graphic painter. Gradually, fantastic and mythological motifs came to dominate his paintings and large-scale decorative works. Among his notable achievements are allegorical mural paintings for the jury room of the Ministry of Justice in Essen. He also worked for private patrons in Elberfeld and produced designs for the municipal theatre.

A highly gifted artist, Frenz never aspired to realism, but rather to a dreamlike and allegorical universe in the vein of Franz von Stuck - an approach that earned him the reputation of being the “Rhenish Franz von Stuck.”