Willy Tiedjen

Willy Tiedjen
Born	(1881-01-22)January 22, 1881 Hamburg, German Empire
Died	March 18, 1950(1950-03-18) (aged 69) Munich, West Germany
Nationality	German
Education	Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Known for	Painting, drawing
Notable work	Entenküken (1907), Tonbilder (1915)
Movement	Munich School, German Impressionism
Spouse(s)	Fanny Tiedjen (née Bieber), floral painter
Patron(s)	Galerie Heinemann, Munich Kunstverein
Signature

Willy Tiedjen (1881–1950) was a German painter and draftsman associated with the late Munich School and German Impressionism. His oeuvre encompassed marine views with sailing ships and harbors, equestrian scenes, depictions of rural and farm life, still lifes, and the animal subjects, especially waterfowl and poultry for which he became best known.^[1][2] His canvases are noted for atmospheric light, fluid brushwork, and a close observation of movement and surface, all qualities shaped by his training under prominent professors at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.^[3]

Born in Hamburg in 1881, Tiedjen’s full name was Carl Friedrich Emil Martin Wilhelm Tiedjen; variant spellings Tiedgen and Tietjen appear in auction catalogues and art references.^[2] He grew up in a modest artisan household; a 1936 Hamburger Nachrichten profile describes him as constantly sketching animals, harbor scenes, and rural life from a young age.^[4]

Tiedjen initially trained and worked as a house painter. In his spare time he sketched animals at the Munich Zoo (Tierpark Hellabrunn), where his talent was noticed by Heinrich von Zügel, the prominent animal painter and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. Zügel encouraged him and arranged a scholarship that enabled Tiedjen to pursue formal artistic training, launching his professional career.^[5]

Academy enrollment records for 8 April 1902 list him as Emil M. Wilhelm Tiedjen, age 21, born in Hamburg, of evangelical-Lutheran faith; the entry notes his father’s occupation as Schlosser (locksmith) and records that his mother was a widow. He entered the Academy in the animal painting class (Malschule Zügel) under Zügel.^[6] A 1907 review in the Allgemeine Zeitung identified him explicitly as a pupil of Zügel, calling him the youngest and least known among a circle of modern animal painters but recognizing his promise within the tradition.^[7]

From 1906 to 1907, Tiedjen was represented by the prestigious Galerie Heinemann in Munich, one of the city’s foremost art dealerships.^[8] Heinemann stock and exhibition catalogues document a broad range of titles and subjects from this period.^[9][10][11]

In 1910, Tiedjen exhibited at the Große Kunstausstellung in the Munich Glass Palace, one of the city’s leading exhibition venues. The catalogue included an essay by the art historian Hans Rosenhagen (1858–1943), who described Tiedjen as “small, nimble, later all-too-routine” („klein, behend, später allzu routiniert“), a phrase that underscored both the agility of his painterly touch and the perception among contemporaries that his later production tended toward formula.^[12]

In September 1915, Tiedjen’s animal paintings were shown at Brakl’s Kunsthaus on Munich’s Beethovenplatz, one of the city’s leading galleries. A society column in the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten reported that Princess Arnulf of Bavaria and Princess Hildegard of Bavaria (1826–1890) personally visited the exhibition, where his works were displayed alongside those of Wera von Bartels and Korthaus, an indication of both the prominence of the venue and the stature his art had achieved in Munich’s cultural life at the time.^[13]

During World War I, Tiedjen continued to exhibit in Munich, appearing in group shows recorded in the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten in November 1915 and September 1916. These exhibitions featured contemporary landscapes and regional motifs, genres widely embraced by Munich artists at the time for their resonances with regional identity and cultural tradition.^[14][15]

In 1916, Tiedjen was recorded in Munich business directories as a resident painter, confirming his continued professional activity in the city during the World War I.^[16]

In April 1917, his work was also included in a Berlin group exhibition at Galerie Schulte, showing new oil paintings alongside Robert Weise, Erich Kühn, and other contemporary artists.^[17]

By the 1920s, Tiedjen had achieved international recognition. In 1927, several of his paintings were purchased directly from the artist by the California hotelier and collector William A. Matern; after Matern’s death, many were donated to the Orthopedic Hospital in Los Angeles.^[18]

In the 1926 Handbuch des Kunstmarkts, both Willy Tiedjen and his wife, the painter Fanny Tiedjen-Bieber, were listed as living at Kurfürstenstraße 8 in Munich. Willy was described as a painter and graphic artist specializing in animal and landscape scenes and a member of the Munich Artists’ Cooperative (M.K.G.), while Fanny was recorded as a painter and member of the Royal Association of Munich Women Artists (Kgn.V.M.).^[19]

In 1930, his painting Toter Hahn (Dead Rooster) was purchased directly from the Deutsche Kunstausstellung München for the Städtische Galerie, marking his formal inclusion in the municipal art collection of Munich.^[20]

Tiedjen died in Munich in 1950 at the age of 68. He was buried in the Waldfriedhof (Forest Cemetery) in Munich, in the section reserved for artists' graves.^[21]

Beyond his activity as an exhibiting painter, Tiedjen devoted himself to the training of young artists.

In May 1906, the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten announced the founding of Tiedjen's own school for landscape and figure painting in Gräfelfing, on the outskirts of Munich, creating a space where students could immerse themselves directly in the natural world and the study of form.^[22]

Two years later, in March 1908, the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten announced Tiedjen had led his pupils on an excursion to the Buchenberger Heide, departing from his studio on Schellingstraße 70. The outing was more than a simple exercise in plein-air painting; it represented an egalitarian approach to art education, as women were expressly welcomed among the participants at a time when Germany’s art academies still barred them from admission.^[23]

Tiedjen was married to the painter Fanni Tiedjen (sometimes recorded as Fanny Tiedjen or F. Tiedjen-Beiber), who specialized in floral still lifes. She exhibited her work publicly, including at the 1915 Mannheim exhibition of contemporary German fashion and applied arts, where her name appears among the listed participants.^[24]

• Heßstraße 13, Munich (Maxvorstadt) — listed on Galerie Heinemann artist record during representation (1906–07).^[8]
• Schellingstraße 70/IV, Munich (Schwabing) — address shown on Heinemann stock ledger for Tiedjen consignments.^[11]
• Theresienstraße 148, Munich — early-career address recorded on the Heinemann artist file.^[8]
• Schöttlstraße 60a, Munich — listed in Münchener Neueste Nachrichten business/address directory (29 Aug 1916).^[25]

• Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft (Munich Artists’ Cooperative) – one of the largest and oldest professional artist associations in Munich, organizing the annual Glaspalast exhibitions and providing members with a key platform for public exposure.^[26]

• Reichsverband Bildender Künstler Deutschlands (Reich Association of Visual Artists) – a national organization that represented the professional and economic interests of visual artists in Germany.^[27]

• Munich artists’ association Der Bund – a Munich-based exhibiting circle active in the early 20th century, known for offering alternatives to the official Kunstverein exhibitions.^[27]

• Freie Künstlervereinigung Baden (Free Artists’ Association Baden) – a regional group of independent painters and sculptors in southwestern Germany, promoting freer exhibiting opportunities outside of state-run venues.^[27]

• Künstlervereinigung Antipols-Gruppe – a Munich collective formed around 1910–1913, distinguished by its opposition to the conservative dominance of the Munich Kunstverein. The group promoted a more progressive exhibiting platform for painters, draftsmen, and sculptors who sought greater artistic independence.^[28]

• Verein Zoologischer – In December 1908, Tiedjen was named among the members of a newly constituted art committee of the Verein Zoologischer Garten (Munich Zoo). The initiative brought together leading Munich painters, sculptors, and professors—including Hermann Zügel, Julius Seyler, and Adolf Hengeler—to encourage artistic study of animals in the zoological gardens.^[29]

In February 1907, Tiedjen was listed among the artists and colleagues who contributed to the fundraising appeal for a grave monument to the painter and teacher Anton Ažbe, whose private art school in Munich had trained numerous notable artists. The published appeal demonstrates Tiedjen’s connection to Ažbe’s circle and the wider Munich art community of the time. Their efforts were successful. ^[30]

During the First World War, Tiedjen contributed to public aid efforts. In August 1914 he donated his oil painting Deutsches Kriegsschiff im Gefecht (“German Warship in Battle”) to the Red Cross. The work was exhibited at the Kunstsalon Littauer on Odeonsplatz in Munich, with proceeds from its sale directed to support medical relief for the wounded.^[31]

• 
  Ducks in a Pond, oil on board (private collection)
• 
  Fishing Boat, oil on canvas (private collection)
• 
  Large Sailing Ship, oil on canvas (private collection)
• 
  Work Horses Resting, oil painting on board (private collection)
• 
  Rooster and Hens in Landscape, oil on board of rooster and hens feeding outdoors (private collection)
• 
  Work Horses Resting in Shade, oil on canvas (private collection)

First recorded = earliest known documentation (catalogue, exhibition, or auction); not necessarily the year painted.

In addition to his oil paintings and drawings, Tiedjen also produced graphic works. Etchings of rural and animal subjects were exhibited in Munich in 1913, demonstrating his facility in printmaking alongside his painted oeuvre. Several of his motifs were further disseminated in the form of postcards, a popular medium in early 20th-century Germany that brought contemporary art to a broader public. These printed works attest to the wider circulation and recognition of his imagery beyond the gallery sphere.

From the 1900s through the interwar period, Tiedjen’s animal and marine subjects were circulated as *Kunstpostkarten* (art postcards) by Munich and other German publishers, reflecting the broad market for affordable color reproductions of contemporary painting. Surviving examples include collotype and chromolithographic cards with facsimile signatures, issued in numbered series and sold at exhibitions, museum shops and stationers. These cards helped popularise Tiedjen’s ducks, chickens and harbor scenes well beyond the gallery public.^[69]

The German Lost Art Foundation (Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste) is a federally funded institute based in Magdeburg that documents and researches cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, colonial contexts, and wartime loss. It maintains the publicly accessible Lost Art Database of cultural objects that are reported missing or whose ownership is contested.

In January 2024 the foundation registered a drawing by Tiedjen titled Oktoberfest (ink, 37 × 35 cm, inscribed “W. Tiedjen 08” lower right) in its database. The entry forms part of a search request concerning the collection of the Munich art dealer Ludwig Heymann and his wife Therese (née Abeles), whose stock was subject to confiscation in the Nazi period. The drawing was offered at the Adolf Weinmüller auction in Munich on 28–29 May 1937 (lot 648) but went unsold, and its present whereabouts remain unknown.^[117]

Throughout his career, critics repeatedly praised Willy Tiedjen for the refinement and vitality of his animal paintings, particularly his depictions of ducks, waterfowl, and farmyard scenes.

In 1911, the Allgemeine Zeitung noted his “well-observed” animal studies at the Munich Kunstverein, commending his sense of movement and color, and describing him as a talented pupil of Heinrich von Zügel.^[118]

A 1912 critique of the Münchener Kunstschau in the Allgemeine Zeitung already noted the confident assurance of his brushwork and described one of his duck scenes as “well-observed” and “confidently painted.”^[119]

A 1914 notice in the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten listed Tiedjen among the “masters” of animal painting, specifically mentioning his work Schäfchen (“Sheep”).^[120]

In 1915, a critic for the Allgemeine Zeitung remarked that Tiedjen “can, without doubt, paint convincingly observed flocks of sheep on the heath in oil,” acknowledging his assured touch with rural and pastoral motifs. Yet the reviewer added that he was “by no means capable of modern battle depictions by sea, nor in watercolor,” suggesting that Tiedjen’s artistic strengths lay outside the martial and patriotic themes that had become especially prized during the war years. The commentary highlights how contemporaries viewed him as a skilled painter of natural subjects, though not aligned with the more nationalistic artistic currents of the time.^[121]

During the 1915 Munich Kunstverein Christmas exhibition, the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten highlighted the tonal subtleties of his work, singling out his Tonbilder (tone pictures) for their mastery of color values and atmospheric harmony. In the vocabulary of Munich art criticism, this marked him as a painter of refinement and technical assurance.^[122]

More than a decade later, in 1928, the AZ am Abend reaffirmed his reputation, commending his depictions of ducks and harbors for their “lushly vibrant coloration” and “seafaring atmosphere.”^[123]

Tiedjen praise appeared in Munich, which was at the time, one of Europe’s foremost art centers, home to the Secession, the Kunstverein, and internationally attended exhibitions. This underscores the regard in which Tiedjen’s work was held. His paintings were valued not only for their lively naturalism and technical skill, but also for their ability to evoke atmosphere in a way that resonated with the city’s most discerning critics.

Willy Tiedjen’s works remain in circulation on the international art market, appearing at major auction houses including Christie's, Sotheby's, and regional European dealers.^[1] His paintings are valued for their combination of technical skill, narrative warmth, and impressionistic light effects; period reproductions, such as the 1936 Hamburger Nachrichten feature, also document his subjects and style.^[4]

• Munich Academy matriculation record (8 Apr 1902) (in German)
• Galerie Heinemann Online – artist record (in German)
• Galerie Heinemann – 1907 collective exhibition (in German)
• Galerie Heinemann – 1907 collective exhibition (Kollektion Willy Tiedjen) (in German)
• Galerie Heinemann – stock ledger page (in German)
• Brakls Moderne Kunsthandlung catalogue (c.1925) (in German)
• Hamburger Nachrichten 1936 illustrated feature – SUB Hamburg (in German)
• Simonis & Buunk – bio and works