Quick Facts
Biography
Walter Rudolf Leistikow (25 October 1865 – 24 July 1908) was a German artist, painter, etcher and writer from Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) in the Prussian Province of Posen .
Training
His mother was among the first to notice his artistic talent and taught him the basic principles of drawing and painting. He left home at the age of 18 to study at the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin but, after only six months, he was dismissed for 'lack of talent' by Anton von Werner. He then became a private pupil of Hermann Eschke (1823–1900) and later (1885–1887) took private lessons from the Norwegian landscape painter Hans Fredrik Gude (1825–1902). He also befriended Edvard Munch when he visited Berlin.
Affiliations
In 1890, Leistikow joined Berlin's Art and Craft School as a professor. He was a founder member of 'The XI', the Berlin art group established in 1892. In 1898, he became one of the founders of the Berlin Secession Movement. Around 1902, he started working for the German chocolate company Stollwerck in Cologne where he created designs for their albums, most notably for the series on 'German landscapes'.
Leistikow's works are popular among connoisseurs and are auctioned from time to time around the world.
Death
Leistikow committed suicide on 24 July 1908 by shooting himself at the Schlachtensee. He had been suffering from advanced-stage syphilis. He was buried at the Steglitz cemetery in Berlin. His is an Ehrengrab (a grave of honour) from the City of Berlin.
Leistikowstrasse, Berlin
Leistikowstrasse, a street in the old Berlin borough of Charlottenburg, now Westend (Berlin), is named after him.
Resources
- Paret, Peter: The Berlin Secession. Modernism and Its Enemies in Imperial Germany, Harvard University Press 1980