Bernhard Strigel (1461 - 1528)

Bernhard Strigel

Bernhard Strigel was a German painter of the Swabian school, one of the most important masters of the transitional period between the Gothic and the Renaissance.

Bernhard came from a family of artists from Memmingen. He painted works on religious and historical subjects, but became more famous as a portrait painter. The artist painted many portraits of noble citizens of his time in the spirit of the early Northern Renaissance.

Strigel enjoyed the patronage of Emperor Maximilian I and in 1515 became his court painter in Vienna. Here in the same year he created one of the earliest group portraits in Germany, a depiction of Maximilian I and his family. In the last years of his life he gave up religious work and devoted himself almost exclusively to portraiture.