resin fir

Otto Illie’s work contains numerous forest, tree or root portraits. Among other things, he found these motives in the resin. The resin fir, actually a spruce, has branches hanging down. Here she stands up at a mountain. Their roots are partly above the soil. The woodcut is signed with “Otto Illies” at the bottom right, signed with: “Harztanne,” (woodcut) "at the bottom left and monogrammed in the picture at the bottom left. On the back there is a dedication: “To the thanksgiving and to the memory Hildegard Illies and Töchter, March 1959.” Otto Illies was born in Japan in 1881. His father was a Hamburg overseas businessman. He spent school in Hamburg. He had painting lessons with Georg Burmeister and the painter Ernst Eitner. From 1901 to 1902 he was a hospital officer at the University of Munich. From 1904 to 1908 he was master student Ludwig von Hofmann at the Weimar School of Art. He married Hildegard Golich in 1917. In 1924 he moved to Wernigerode. A friendship developed with Ludwig von Hofmann. They painted together by the sea, for example. Otto Illies had exhibitions in Weimar, Hamburg, Braunschweig, Magdeburg, Dessau, Jena, Halle and Wernigerode. He died in 1959 in Wernigerode. (Wernigerode Harz Museum)