Wilhelm Trübner

In 1851, Wilhelm Trübner was born in Heidelberg as the son of a goldsmith. During his training at the Goldsmiths’ School in Hanau, the painter Anselm Feuerbach urged him to become an artist. From 1867, Trübner studied painting at the Grand Ducal School of Art in Karlsruhe, and moved to Munich in 1869, where he met the German Impressionists Lovis Corinth, Max Slevogt and Max Liebermann. At the International Art Exhibition in the Munich Glass Palace, Trübner saw works by artists such as Courbet, Manet and Leibl for the first time. He met the latter in 1871, left the academy at his advice and joined the “Leibl Circle”, which existed until 1876, and for whose members the art of painting stood at the centre of their realism, which was influenced by Courbet and 17th-century Dutch art. By the mid-1870s, Trübner was at the height of his creative work; though, it was not until 1889 that he took part in exhibitions more frequently. In 1896/97, he taught at the Städelsche Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main and opened a private painting school after, where he taught numerous pupils of both sexes. From 1892, he published art historical texts. In 1902, he was one of the founding members of the “Frankfurt-Cronberger Künstlerbund”. From 1903, Trübner taught as a professor at the art academy in Karlsruhe, where he died in 1917.