Kurt Peiser - socially committed artist - early 20th century etching "sleeping worker" g

• Early 20th century etching by the famous German/Belgian painter and graphic artist Kurt Peiser (1887-1962). Drawn in pencil both under the plate and in the plate. Beautifully realistic representation of a sleeping worker.
  
  
  paper is evenly discoloured which emphasises its age.
  paper has a few (grease) spots in the surrounding blank margin - the image is in good, sharp condition. In passe partout - not framed.
  

Kurt Peiser (Antwerp, 1887 - Ukkel, 1962) was an Antwerp painter, draughtsman and etcher of German origin. His parents, both born in Gleiwitz (Prussia) came from Charlottenburg (Berlin) to Antwerp in 1885, where his father, a famous chemist, found work as director of the sugar factory in Tienen. Peiser took Belgian nationality when he turned 18.

He was a painter with great social and humanitarian concern. He was also a watercolourist and lithographer. His style is realistic with impressionistic and expressionistic touches.

He received his education at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Peiser was a pupil of Gerard Jacobs. Peiser's pupils included Rudolf Schönberg, Hermann Kosak and Jacob de Vries.

He painted both seascapes, fishermen's life, life in and around the Antwerp harbour and more emotionally charged images of poverty and misery. In the seascapes he paints the sailor's life that he himself experienced for ten years. On 4 June 1914 the artist appeared before the Antwerp court after eleven paintings were removed from an exhibition. He was sentenced to a fine for offending public morals, after which the confiscated works were returned.

His graphic oeuvre is, like his paintings, very extensive. He devoted a series of etchings to the Antwerp harbour. Peiser was an active member of La Gravure Originale Belge.

In 1929, the prestigious and leading Galerie Georges Giroux presented an important retrospective of his oeuvre. This exhibition was a great recognition, because Galerie Georges Giroux was one of the most leading galleries in Brussels in the first half of the 20th century. Both Wassily Kandinsky and Henri Evenepoel and the Jespers brothers had their exhibitions there in the 1910s. In the twenties, James Ensor, Georges Minne, Gustave De Smet and others followed.

The two most recent exhibitions were held in 2018 at Museum De Reede in Antwerp and at Maison des Artistes in Uccle.