In Germany and Italy

Gustav Lehmann (1883-1914) was the most important Braunschweig painter known to Emmy Scheyer. He created portraits of wealthy citizens in the manner of the Old Masters or landscapes in cool colours until the painter Charles J. Palmié, who was deeply impressed by Claude Monet, encouraged him to turn to bright colours and to work like the Neo-Impressionists. Lehmann soon belonged to the Braunschweig and Munich bohemian scene. He always signed his oil paintings and works on paper legibly. He died in July 1914 after an appendix operation.

Photo: Gustav Lehmann, circa 1910
Private collection, Munich

Emmy Scheyer was also friends with Albert Hamburger (1893-1915). He grew up as the son of a Jewish merchant family from Braunschweig, left high school early and took lessons with Gustav Lehmann in Munich and at the Corinth painting school in Berlin. He painted some landscapes as well as portraits with plain-coloured background and signed them A. Hamburger. It would be helpful if the Galka Emmy Scheyer Centre could find some of these.

In 1914, Albert Hamburger fought as a volunteer in France and became a victim of the war.

Photo: Albert Hamburger, circa 1913
Private collection, Pittsburgh

An important colleague of Emmy Scheyer’s was Käthe Evers (1893-1918). She studied with Anna Löhr from Braunschweig. In 1912-1913 she painted many pictures at her parents‘ home and in Riddagshausen, then in northern Germany and in Munich. In Fürstenfeldbruck she sketched expressionist sunsets. They got lost and still need to be found. Her final paintings were created when she had to work in an explosives factory in 1918 due to the war. She was killed in a massive explosion.

Photo: Käthe Evers, 1914
Private collection, Hamburg

Elsa Daubert (1894-1972) learned the technique of oil painting from Anna Löhr, together with Käthe Evers. When she stayed in Munich with Emmy Scheyer in the winter of 1913-1914, an intimate relationship developed between her and Gustav Lehmann. His sudden death hit her hard. In 1919 she married an officer. As a wife and mother, she rarely painted.

Photo: Elsa Daubert, circa 1914
Private collection, Moringen

Otto Ralfs (1892-1955) was a hardware dealer, but he became an avid art collector and gallery owner. He first approached Paul Klee when Emmy Scheyer had already long known the master at the Weimar Bauhaus. Through her he also came into contact with Jawlensky, Feininger and Kandinsky. Supported by his wife Käte, he founded the Society of Friends of Young Art with Emmy Scheyer’s brother Erich and other fellow citizens of Braunschweig. He had similar convictions as Emmy, but the relation between these two passionate art promoters soon broke up.

Photo: Käte Ralfs and Otto Ralfs, Wangerooge, 1926
Unknown private collection