Carl Friedrich Johannes Unger, “Salomé (Portrayed by Eva von der Osten)”, 1917. Oil on Canvas, 135 x 90 cm, Museen der Stadt Dresden
Born in 1872 at Bautzen, a hill-top town in Germany, Carl Friedrich Johannes Unger was a painter, who during his lifetime, was a highly respected Art Nouveau and Symbolist artist. In 1887, he took an apprenticeship as a decoration-painter in Bautzen; but later, between 1888 and 1893 studied painting in the Royal Dresden Court Theater. Unger continued his studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, under land and seascape painter Friedrich Preller the Younger and historical painter and sculptor Hermann Prell.
After making a series of watercolors on the island Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, Unger effectively launched his international career in 1896 with his “Plakat” poster for the Dresden-based organ manufacturer Estey. In 1897, his painting “Die Muse (The Muse)” was eagerly purchased by the Old Masters Gallery, part of the Dresden State Art Collections. Unger continued his studies at the Académie Julian in Paris from October 1897 to March of 1898, under the tutorage of painters Tony-Robert Fleury and Jules Lefebvre.
In 1899, Hans Unger exhibited his work at the German Art Exhibition in Dresden; his “Self Portrait in a Sweater” and his landscape “Farewell” were displayed among his other works. At the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, he won the bronze medal for his exhibited works. After becoming a member of the newly established German Artists Union, Unger traveled the North Sea and Baltic areas, visited Italy and Egypt, producing pastel paintings and watercolors. For his work exhibited at the St. Louis 1904 World’s Fair, he won another bronze medal.
During 1917 and 1918, Hans Unger participated in several major Dresden exhibitions, including the 1918 Dresden Art Exhibition, with eleven paintings and ten drawings, and the Dresden Artists Society exhibition, where he entered six paintings and designed the catalogue’s cover image. With the cultural change in Germany after the loss of the war in 1918, Unger’s works of idealized women in pastoral landscapes fell out of popularity. Still a wealthy man, he continued to travel through Europe and Africa, visiting Egypt, exhibiting, and becoming an artist under the patronage of King Fuad I of Egypt.
An exhibition for Hans Unger’s sixtieth birthday was organized by the Art Association of Saxony in 1933. After this celebration Unger’s health steadily deteriorated, with a late diagnosis of kidney disease. He died at his home in Loschwitz, Dresden, on the 9th of August in 1936, and was buried in Loschwitz Cemetery. The resurgence of interest in Jugendstil decorative art of Germany in the 1960s brought Hans Unger’s work back to the attention of the art world, resulting in an increase in popularity and several museum retrospectives.
Note: Hans Unger’s 1917 “Salomé”, a portrait of German suprano opera singer Eva von der Osten in her performance as Salomé, was exhibited at the 1917 exhibition of the Dresdner Kunstgenossenschaft, Dresden Artists Society.