Otto Hettner, “Rowers”, Pre 1931, Oil on Canvas

Born in Dresden in January of 1875, Hermann Otto Hettner was a German illustrator, painter, engraver, and sculptor. Between 1897 and 1904, he studied at Karlsruhe’s Academy of Fine Arts, under painter and sculptor Robert Pötzelberger, and later at the Académie Julian in Paris. 

In 1904, Otto Hettner relocated to Florence, Italy, where, in October of 1905, Jeanne Alexandrine Thibert gave birth to his son Roland. He later married Jeanne Thibert in London in May of 1907; a daughter, Sabine Hettner, who would become a noted landscape and portrait painter, was born the following year. With his family, Hettner returned to Dresden in 1913 and studied at its Academy of Fine Arts. In 1916, he became an executive committee member of the Free Secession, an association of modern artists in Berlin, and,  in  1917, became Director of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught as a Full Professor until 1927. 

Hettner illustrated various books for publishers, including art dealer Paul Cassirer’s Pan-Presse imprint, Avalun-Verlag in Dresden, and Marses-Gesellschaft, an imprint collaboration between art historian Julius Meier-Graefe and avant-garde publisher Reinhard Piper. Among these works were lithographic illustrations done for Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s 1923 “Florindo”, a  1923 publication of the ancient Greek novel by Longus entitled “Daphnis and Chloe”, Spanish writer Miguel de Cervnates’s “La Galatea”, and author-journalist Heinrich von Kleist’s “The Earthquake of Chile”. 

Hermann Otto Hettner passed away in Dresden in April of 1931. His works are in private collections and can be seen in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco.

Insert Image: Otto Hettner, “Bogenschütze”, 1901, Oil on Canvas,  100 x 80 cm, Kulturhistorische Museum, Magdeburg