Curt querner biography of rory

The Prisoner of War Werner Jeffré

Signed and dated lower right Curt Querner/ 28. 2. 47

Watercolor and gouache on board

31 x 24 cm (12 ¼ x 9 ½ inches)

The son of a cobbler and a locksmith’s apprentice, Curt Querner was an unlikely young man to pursue the life of an artist. A working-class victim of Germany’s economic crash after World War I, Querner spent years holding jobs as a manual laborer before finally enrolling at the Dresden Art Academy in 1926. He continued working in factories to pay for his education, during which he studied painting under esteemed professors Richard Müller (1874-1954), Georg Lührig (1868-1957) and, most notably, Otto Dix (1891-1969). Towards the end of his studies, Querner embarked on a two-year journey throughout Europe to study the masters, filling sketchbooks with studies of Gothic architecture, Romanesque sculpture and paintings by Rubens, Bruegel and Dürer. Querner’s technique improved from this exposure, however his true inte