Projects

Past exhibitions

Ausstellung Johan Thorn Prikker 1868-1932
De Jugendstil vorbij
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam
Nov. 11, 2010 – February 13, 2011

JOHAN THORN PRIKKER

Johan Thorn Prikker (b The Hague, 6 June 1868; d Cologne, 5 Mar. 1932). Dutch-German painter and designer.

Early in his career Thorn Prikker passed through phases of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, then changed to an elaborate linear style and thus became a leading exponent of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, as in his most famous painting - the mystical, erotic The Bride (1893, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo) or in the beautiful pieces of furniture he designed for the Hague art gallery Arts and Crafts (1899, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague). In 1904 Thorn Prikker was appointed a teacher of drawing and ornamentation at the arts and crafts school in Krefeld, Germany. After having moved to Hagen/Westphalia in 1910 where he worked for the art patron Karl Ernst Osthaus, he concentrated on the design of wall paintings, mosaics, and stained glass windows, such as the huge The Artist As a Teacher of Commerce and Trade in Hagen’s central train station. In the 1920s he taught at several art schools in Munich, Düsseldorf and Cologne and was a major figure in the development of modern religious art. His masterpiece is perhaps the cycle of windows in the Romanesque church of St George in Cologne, completed in 1930.