Gurlitt, Cornelia

PAINTER (GERMANY)
BORN 26 Jun 1890, Dresden, Sachsen - DIED 5 Aug 1919, Berlin
CAUSE OF DEATH suicide
GRAVE LOCATION Dresden, Sachsen: Johannisfriedhof, Wehlener Strasse 13, Tolkewitz (3 F)

The expressionist painter Cornelia Gurlitt was the daughter of the art historian Cornelius Gurlitt and his wife Marie Gerlach. She was known in the family as Eutl. In Dresden she studied under Hans Nadler. In Paris she met Anton Kolig and they were friends until her death. In 1914 her work was first exhibited at the Kunsthütte in Chemnitz together with the work of Ilse Hurtig.

During the First World War her fiancee Rolf Donandt was killed on 1 August 1914. She went to the Eastern Front and worked in field hospitals in Vilnius. There she met Conrad Felixmüller who drew her as a nurse in 1917. She also met the theatre critic and editor Paul Fechter (1880-1958) in Vilnius and became his lover.

After the war she went to Berlin where she wanted to make a living as an artist. But she fell into a depression and she killed herself in 1919. Her brother Hildebrand was her executor. Her work disappeared in his own art collection and was mostly forgotten until the collection was discovered in 2014. Fechter praised her talent in his "An der Wende der Zeit. Menschen und Begegnungen" (1949).

Family
• Father: Gurlitt, Cornelius
• Brother: Gurlitt, Hildebrand

Related persons
• met Felixmüller, Conrad

Images

The grave of Cornelius Gurlitt at the Johannisfriedhof, Dresden.
Picture by Androom (07 Aug 2016)

 

Sources
Cornelia Gurlitt - Wikipedia
Rückblick | Vergangene Ausstellungen | Archiv – Kunstportal-Pfalz


Gurlitt, Cornelius

Published: 19 May 2018
Last update: 02 Sep 2024