Julius Gotthard Beniamin Greth – portrecista miast

Abstrakt

Julius Gotthard Benjamin Greth is one of the most enigmatic characters in the history of nineteenth-century graphic art. It was a vain effort to look for his biography in dictionaries and encyclopaedias, even in those most reliable. For the last few years the only piece of information about him was a laconic note published in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker regarding the year and place of his birth, profession and date of the publication of the set of drawings created in Gdańsk.

Julius Greth remained virtually anonymous to the world of art and science until the publication of a short article by Dr Mariusz Gliński in the Encyclopaedia of Gdansk in 2012. This situation is surprising because of the enormous amount of the artist’s works used as a visuals in scientific and also popular science publications.

Julius Gotthard Benjamin Greth was born on 9 December 1824 in Bydgoszcz, where he assumedly started his artistic career. He died in 1903 in Heidelberg, in south-west Germany. Julius Greth was an illustrator, engraver and painter associated with the Acad‑ emy of Arts in Königsberg and Gdańsk. Among his best -known pieces of art, though not always attributed to him, are engravings from the album Danzigs alterthümliche Gebäude ( ... ), showing the architecture of Gdansk. and album Erinnerungen an den Bodensee with works illustrating surroundings of Lake Constance.

The article ”Julius Greth - the Portraitist of Cities” is an endeavour to create the artist’s first monograph.