Woldemar Friedrich was a German historical painter and illustrator.

Biography

He studied in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 under Carl Steffeck, and in Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

 under Arthur von Ramberg

Arthur von Ramberg

Arthur von Ramberg was an Austrian-born painter who worked in Germany.-Biography:He studied art at Hanover and early made a tour in Italy, Hungary and Styria. In 1840, he attended the university at Prague, while at the same time uniting the pursuit of art with his other studies...

, Charles Verlat and Bernhard Plockhorst

Bernhard Plockhorst

Bernhard Plockhorst was a German painter and graphic artist. In Germany, Plockhorst is only known to experts today, whereas his pictures are still very popular in the United States and their reproductions can be found in many American homes and churches.- Life :Plockhorst was born in Brunswick,...

. He took part in the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

 of 1870-71, and after a visit to Italy, in 1873, returned to Weimar, where he was made professor at the School of Art in 1881. Called to Berlin in 1885 as instructor at the Academy of Fine Arts

Akademie der Künste

The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...

, he was awarded the gold medal in 1886 for his allegorical ceiling painting in the Exhibition Building. In 1889 he became a member of and professor at the Berlin Academy.

Works

Among several other decorative works on a large scale are “The Diet of Worms” (1892), in the Aula (auditorium) of the gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 at Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

, and the two mural paintings “Art and Science,” and “Book-Trade and Printing,” in the Booksellers' Exchange at Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

. A series of landscapes and genre pictures in water-colors and the illustrations to his work Sechs Monate in Indien (1893) were the fruits of a journey to India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.