Collection: Art prints by Alexander Koester

Alexander Koester was a German painter and is regarded as one of the most charming and idiosyncratic figures in German genre painting and landscape painting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - an artist whose work developed from humble beginnings into a distinctive pictorial world characterized by a single motif, which earned him extraordinary popularity during his lifetime and has lost none of its appeal to this day. He was born in Heidenheim an der Brenz in 1864 and initially completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist before deciding in 1885 to pursue his real interests and study art at the Karlsruhe Academy under Karl Hoff and Claus Meyer. As a student, he earned his living by painting portraits, but his interest increasingly turned to genre painting and atmospheric landscapes, which heralded his later development.

After completing his studies in 1896, Koester moved to Klausen and devoted himself entirely to painting - a move that was to give his artistic career a decisive turn. During this time, he created numerous landscape paintings and discovered the motif that would forever shape his name: the duck. Fascinated by the ducks on his father-in-law's property, he began to paint these animals in a growing number of variations, studying their anatomy, behavior and movements with a patience and dedication that turned mere interest into a genuine artistic passion. What at first glance may seem like a strange specialization turned out to be a consistent decision for a motif that offered him inexhaustible possibilities: the duck as a pictorial subject allowed him to explore light, water, reflection and atmospheric mood in ever new variations, developing a mastery that remained unparalleled in this niche. His duck paintings quickly gained great popularity and made him known in Germany as "Enten-Koester" - an epithet that both testifies to his popularity and hints at the danger that any strong specialization entails: being reduced to a single motif that obscures the breadth of his own skills.

From 1908 onwards, Koester systematically expanded his range of motifs and frequently traveled to the Lake Constance region to paint large expanses of water in different weather and light conditions. These works show another, lesser-known side of his work: not the animal in the foreground, but the water itself as the subject of the picture, the play of light and shadow on moving and still surfaces, the changeability of the atmosphere over the lake at different times of the day and year. A central feature of his development as a painter is the increasing freedom and looseness with which he approached his motifs over the years. From an initially detailed, realistic style of representation, he gradually moved towards a more impressionistic style of painting, which was further emphasized in his later works and lent his pictures a freshness and immediacy that went far beyond the documentary.

Koester was a member of the Munich Artists' Cooperative and regularly took part in exhibitions, where his works always met with a receptive audience. Art critical acclaim lagged behind his popular success, which is not unusual for artists whose work is so closely associated with a particular motif that the underlying painterly quality is easily overlooked. Alexander Koester died in Munich in 1932, leaving behind a body of work whose popularity has endured the test of time. His duck paintings in particular are still extremely popular on the art market - at times the witty rule of thumb was that the more ducks, the more expensive - but his water landscapes and mood paintings are also increasingly gaining the recognition that corresponds to their atmospheric quality and painterly freedom. Today, Alexander Koester is regarded as one of the most charming specialists in German animal painting, whose work has more to offer in its combination of powers of observation, sense of light and painterly development than his popular nickname would suggest.