Friedrich Dürck

Friedrich Dürck (28 August 1809 in Leipzig, 25 October 1884 in Munich) was a German portrait and genre painter.

He was the son of a well-to-do merchant, who lost his fortune in the post-Napoleonic turmoil, and was finally glad to go as an inspector of the royal hunting lodge Hubertusburg. Friedrich Dürck, whose artistic imagination was supposed to have been awakened by a slightly injured soldier who was quartered by the family of Dürck, received art lessons at the Kunstakademie Leipzig.

In 1822 his uncle, the royal Bavarian court painter Joseph Stieler, invited him to continue his education in Munich under his leadership. In spite of the fact that at that time the director Peter von Langer was initially not ready for the antiquarian hall, Joseph Stieler brought the young Dürck two years later to the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. Dürck studied oil painting and portrait, and helped his uncle to 1829 with his portraits. He supported him especially in the decoration of Nymphenburg Palace, copying Stieler's famous works such as the famous portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

In 1828, he published a portrait for the first time, and soon became a famous painter in Munich. He traveled to Italy in 1836 and stayed in Rome and Florence until 1837. After his return, he lived in Munich and portrayed numerous personalities of public life and the Bavarian court, including King Ludwig I in 1858. In 1849 he accepted an invitation to the Swedish court and in 1854 to the Austrian court.

After 1860 he painted mainly genre and costume pictures.
1861 commissioned Ludwig I I. Dürck to create two further portraits for the beauty gallery in Nymphenburg Palace. Thus, the only two pictures of the collection that did not come directly from Stieler were created: they are the portraits of Anna von Creiner and Carlotta Freiin of Breidbach-Bürresheim.

The bacteriologist Hermann Dürck was his grandson.
Some works by Dürck are now also in the Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar, which is supported by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar.
https://hisour.com/artist/friedrich-durck/