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Albrecht Durer (Germany) 1471- |  ARTIST PROFILE
Albrecht Durer was the son of a goldsmith who settled in Nuremberg in 1455, and in 1467 married his master's daughter. The young Albrecht was first apprenticed to his father, and was then bound for three years to the painter Michael Wolgemut, whose large workshop also produced woodcut book illustrations
for the printer Anton Koberger, Durer's godfather.
He traveled for four years, from Easter 1490, visiting Colmar, Basle, and Strasbourg, and in May 1494, he returned to Nuremberg and married. In the autumn of 1494, he went to Venice. During this visit, he met Giovanni Bellini, whom he greatly
admired, and painted several works for the German merchants of Venice, which shows some knowledge of Leonardo. On his return, he intensified the learned side of his art and personality; he studied mathematics, geometry, Latin, and humanist literature, and sought the company of scholars rather
than that of his fellow artisans. This departure in mode of life and thought was directly traceable to the influence of Leonardo and Mantegna and the example of Bellini, and though it was common enough in Italy, it was unprecedented in Germany.
In 1512, he became court painter to the Emporer Maximillian,
and in July 1520, he journeyed to the Netherlands to obtain from his successor, Charles V, the ratification of his post and pension. He saw the coronation of the new Emperor at Aachen and was confirmed in his office, visited Antwerp, Brussels, Malines, Cologne, Middleburg, Brugues and Ghent,
and was honored and feted all along the route. He returned home in July 1521, and despite ill-health resulting from fever, probably contracted in the swamps of Zeeland, where he had ventured in the hope of seeing a dead whale, he worked unremittingly until his death.
Durer's enormous oeuvre consists
of woodcuts and engravings, paintings, and preparatory and independent drawings, and he also wrote treatises on measurement, fortification, proportion, and artistic theory, besides his detailed diary of his Netherlands journey. He was the main channel through which Italian Renaissance forms
and ideas were introduced into the North, and he combined these with the individualism general in German art and inherited from the Gothic tradition.
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RELATED EXHIBITIONS
 Hamburg : From Durer to Goya. 100 Masterdrawings
Munich : The Contest Between Painting and Sculpture. From Durer to Daumier
Ottawa : The Engraved Passion of Durer
Pittsburgh : Masterworks from the Albertina - Renaissance to Rococo
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ARTIST WORKS
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WORK DETAILS |
 | | Title: | Adoration of the Magi | | Medium: | 1504, dimensions 100?114cm, Oil on panel | | Exhibited at: | Galleria degli Uffizi | |
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 | | Title: | Lamentation of Christ | | Medium: | 1503, dimensions 151?121cm, Oil on panel | | Exhibited at: | Alte Pinakothek | |
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 | | Title: | Melancholia I | | Medium: | 1514, | | Exhibited at: | | |
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 | | Title: | Portrait of Durer's Father | | Medium: | 1490, dimensions 48?40cm, Oil on panel | | Exhibited at: | Galleria degli Uffizi | |
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 | | Title: | Portrait of Hieronymous Holzschuher | | Medium: | 1526, dimensions 51?37cm, Oil on panel | | Exhibited at: | Staatliche Museen Berlin | |
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