Goethe: Römische Elegien mit 14 signierten Steinzeichnungen von Willi Geiger

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Book with 14 lithographs signed by Willi Geiger in the deluxe edition. Wide-margined press print on untrimmed laid paper. Edited by H. Kluger, printed by C. Wolf & Sohn, each Munich. - The rare illustration work was created while Geiger was teaching at the Staatl. Academy of Arts and Book Trade in Leipzig (1928-1933). At the beginning with the printed dedication 'For my friend Walter Gagg. Willie Geiger'. The work, which was self-published by the artist, was created while he was teaching at the Leipzig Academy, where Goethe himself was one of the most illustrious students. Published in 100 numbered copies. Bound here in the preferred configuration in original half parchment. 56 pages orig. with cover title. Willi Geiger (born August 27, 1878 in Schönbrunn near Landshut, Lower Bavaria; died February 11, 1971 in Munich) was a German painter, graphic artist, bookplate artist of Expressionism and an early member of the German Association of Artists. Willi Geiger was born in Landshut in 1878 as the son of a teacher. From 1898 to 1899 he attended the Munich School of Applied Arts and then the Technical University, where he passed his state examination as a drawing teacher. From 1903 Willi Geiger studied with Franz von Stuck and Peter Halm at the Munich Academy, e.g. together with Hans Purrmann and Albert Weisgerber. In 1907, Willi Geiger designed a whole series of black and white art postcards with Munich sights as a motif, e.g. B. At Max Klinger's suggestion, Willi Geiger received the Villa Romana Prize in 1910 because of his success as a graphic artist. He worked on etchings for works by Richard Dehmel, Frank Wedekind and others. Geiger lived in Berlin until 1914 and exhibited at the Cassirer and Gurlitt galleries. He then went back to Munich and became a professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule. He copied paintings by the great Spaniards Goya, Velasquez and El Greco and turned to portrait painting, the Greco study being most consciously reflected in the portrait of the composer Hans Pfitzner. After the National Socialists seized power, Geiger was dismissed from the civil service and from his teaching post at the Leipzig State Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Trade (today the Leipzig Academy for Graphics and Book Art), where he had taught since 1928. In 1937, during the Nazi action "Degenerate Art", a significant number of his works were demonstrably removed from the art collections of the city of Düsseldorf, the Museum Folkwang Essen, the Städelsches Kunstinstitut and Municipal Gallery in Frankfurt am Main, the Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, confiscated from the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg, the State Graphic Collection in Munich, the Municipal Gallery in Nuremberg and the Hall of Fame in Wuppertal-Barmen. Almost all were destroyed. Some went to the art dealers Bernhard A. Böhmer and Karl Buchholz for "exploitation" on the art market. The whereabouts of this work is unknown. Geiger lived a secluded life in Feldwies am Chiemsee and struggled to perfect his art of painting. In 1946, Willi Geiger resumed teaching, now at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 1948 he was made an honorary citizen of Landshut. In 1951 Willi Geiger received the Culture Prize of the City of Munich, in 1958 the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 1963 the Schwabing Art Prize and in 1969 the Bavarian Order of Merit. The painter and sculptor Rupprecht Geiger (1908–2009) was his only child.