This article is about Sir Hubert von Herkomer, an artist most people have likely not heard of much in the past hundred years, but who in his own time was among the most prominent painters and a pioneer in other fields as well. And it’s about the museum dedicated to him in his home town.
Self-portraits made in 1879 and 1907
Born in 1849 near Landsberg, Germany, without either the British ‘Sir’ or the German ‘von’ to his name, Herkomer’s story has real elements of ‘rags to riches’ and possibly a bit of ‘humble to arrogant’ tossed in. By the height of his career, he had been knighted by Queen Victoria, ennobled by Ludwig II of Bavaria, made a professor at Oxford, and hailed as one of the foremost portraitists of the age.
Herkomer’s parents, Lorenz and Josephine, painted by him in 1877
But none of that seemed likely at the beginning. His father was an impoverished wood carver; his mother eked out some funds with music lessons. When he was two, they emigrated to Ohio, and then again when he was eight, to England, where the family continued to struggle. Herkomer’s formal schooling ended not long after and he worked with his father, including for several years on a commission in Munich for wooden statues of the Four Evangelists.
After returning from Munich in 1866, Herkomer began serious art study in Southhampton Schools, and by 1869 had a job making illustrations for The Graphic, a new ‘socially-conscious’ competitor of the Illustrated London News. Many of his illustration focused, empathetically, on the struggles of London’s poor. He began painting scenes from his illustrations and then others, and began to gain a reputation as a realist painter of social impact.
He often repeated themes; the 1892 ‘Rest in Hard Times’ is clearly related to the larger scene above. The 1875 ‘The Last Muster’ is a reworking of the 1871 drawing of ‘Sunday at the Chelsea Hospital,’ depicting elderly Army pensioners.
Some of the works hint at his future as a portraitist.
He was increasingly successful, financially as well as artistically; he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy and sold ‘The Last Muster’ for £1200, about £180,000 in today’s money, in 1875. By the 1880s, he turned mainly to portraiture, and attracting commissions from socially or at least financially elevated circles. Over a 30-year period, he produced around 500 portraits. A number of them are in the Tate and in the National Portrait Gallery.
In 1885, he became Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, despite having only brief schooling—the 1897 self-portrait in academic robes is token of that. Honors came from all directions in those days: the ‘von’ of a newly-minted Bavarian noble in 1899, the ‘sir’ of a British knighthood in 1907. Other honors arrived from France, from Prussia and elsewhere. He painted himself and his wife, bearing them all. In the painting, his wife looks less interested.
Perhaps his most unusual portrait is this one: Queen Victoria on her deathbed. The Queen’s son, King Edward VII, rejected the traditional idea of a wax death mask, and instead had a photograph made, and then commissioned Herkomer to make this painting from the photograph.
While busy producing all those portraits, and teaching, Herkomer still had time for a variety of other pursuits. He built a private theater at his English country estate, and produced plays there, some written by himself, and often including himself in the cast. He was also a pioneer film-maker, producing several historical costume dramas, set to his own music. None of them survive, but critics at the time were kind.
He also adapted both film and audio techniques to his studio, allowing him to teach students remotely by recording his lectures and demonstrations, a very early start on what we would now think of as ‘remote learning.’
As well as his English estate, Herkomer built a home in Landsberg, along the Lech river, and spent most of his summers there. The house is now a museum of his life and work, and one of its features is a Landsberg landmark: the gold-capped ‘Mutterturm,’ or Mother Tower, he built for his mother. It’s open as part of a museum visit by crossing a wooden bridge from an upper floor.
What appears to be a small chapel in the garden of his house is actually a very English touch: a folly. Instead of an ancient place of worship, it is actually a washhouse and garden shed.
Also in Landsberg, he painted the town square, and organized a series of automotive sports rallies, starting in 1905, including the first touring car rally, which is still held at Landsberg in alternate years.
By the end of his life, which came in March 1914, Herkomer’s twin loyalties to Germany and England were in conflict. He had long said “I am therefore a British subject wherever the British flag flies, and a German subject wherever the German colors are hoisted.” Within months of his death, that became an impossible situation, but by then, Herkomer had already been buried near his English home.
Although he is not often in the art news these days, his work hangs in many British museums, and especially in the Bushey Museum, near where his English home was, and in the Herkomer Museum in Landsberg. The Bushey Museum mounted a major portrait exhibition earlier this year.
