Richard Seewald (1889 - 1976)

Richard Seewald

Richard Seewald was a German painter, graphic artist, illustrator and educator.

Seewald studied architecture at the Munich Polytechnic Institute, but soon turned to painting and collaborated with magazines that published his cartoons. He soon mastered etching and etching, became a member of the New Munich Secession in 1913, and illustrated an edition of Robinson Crusoe, Penthesilea (Heinrich von Kleist) and his first book.

In 1924 Seewald was appointed to a teaching position at the Werkschule in Cologne; in 1931 he settled in Ticino, where he received commissions for murals in churches and other church buildings. In 1954 Richard Seewald accepted an offer to become a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and resigned four years later after a disagreement with the academy's presidium. After his wife's death, he burned about 150 of his paintings, as well as hundreds of sketches, drafts, and correspondence. In the late 1960s, Seewald designed windows for the Herz-Jesu-Kirche (Sacred Heart Church) in Munich-Neuhausen and St. Michael's Church in Iserlo.