Hans Brasch

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Hans Brasch (2 April 1882 – 13 May 1973) was a German expressionist painter best known for his portraits. He also painted still lifes of flowers and landscapes of southwest Germany, and he drew line art for the satirical magazine Fliegende Blätter in the early 1900s.

He was born in Karlsruhe, one of four children. His father, also named Johannes Brasch, was a painter and stage-set maker who wanted Hans to join the family business. Defying him, Hans studied art at Karlsruhe’s Applied Arts College and then at the Academy of Fine Arts (1900–1906). He became a Meisterschüler ofHans Thoma from 1904 to 1908. After 1908 he copied old masters to learn technique. In 1910 he worked with the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler and traveled to Paris, then lived in Mannheim, Heidelberg, and near Lake Constance before settling in Frankfurt in 1913 as a freelance artist.

Brasch soon became a sought-after portrait painter. He served in the army during World War I (1914–1918). After the war, he shared a studio in Frankfurt with August Babberger and Rudolf Gudden. He studied Goethe’s Theory of Colors and Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. In 1920 he bought an old farmstead at Urberg near Sankt Blasien in the Black Forest, where he studied nature closely and began to paint more landscapes and forests. He increasingly used watercolors on delicate Washi paper, while continuing to work in other media.

A notable work from this period is his 1925/26 mural at Bad Orb railway station, a large piece depicting the seasons, the springs, and local life. In 1930 he moved to Stuttgart, producing large wall paintings and stained-glass works in public buildings and playing a prominent role in the city’s cultural life.

When the Nazi regime came to power, his art was labeled degenerate in 1937, and works shown in public museums were confiscated. He continued to paint and showed his work in private galleries in Germany and abroad. Hans Brasch died in Murrhardt near Stuttgart on 13 May 1973, aged 91. He had one child, Helga Brasch-Schwenk.