Christian Georg Speyer
German, 1855 - 1929
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Christian Georg Speyer was a German history and horse painter.
Christian Speyer came from a family of pastors. Continuing the family tradition, he attended the Protestant theological seminar in Blaubeuren from 1869 to 1873. In 1873 he was accepted into the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen. Under the impression of a trip to the World Exhibition in Vienna, he decided to pursue an artistic career despite his parents' resistance. From 1873 he studied painting at the Royal Art School in Stuttgart under the history painters Bernhard von Neher and Carl von Häberlin . After completing his studies, he went on a study trip to Italy (Rome, Sicily) in 1881 with the help of a scholarship.
He came to North Africa accompanied by the African explorer Gustav Nachtigal. In Tunis he found an apartment in the building of the British consulate. There he dedicated himself to horse painting. He then came home to Stuttgart and became a member of the local association for the promotion of art. In 1883 he moved to Munich. He worked as an illustrator for magazines such as the Gartenlaube and the Illustrierte Zeitung, as a book illustrator and as an assistant teacher at the drawing school. Among other things, he illustrated war and military books, including “Our People in Arms” by Bernhard von Poten and numerous volumes of “Illustrated Battle Descriptions” from the Franco-Prussian Warby Carl Bleibtreu. He also increasingly turned to military and battle scenes in his paintings. In 1891 he designed the poster for the Munich annual exhibition in the Glass Palace.
Speyer was one of the founding members of the Munich Secession . In 1885 and 1887 he undertook study trips to Berlin and in 1887 to Paris. In 1901 Speyer was appointed professor of drawing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, where he remained until his retirement in 1924. His primary task was to provide students with basic drawing training.
Christian Speyer was a member of the German Artists' Association.