LEISTIKOW, Walter

German painter, decorative artist, etcher, exhibition organizer and writer. He studied painting briefly in 1883, at the Akademie in Berlin, but he was dismissed after six months as ‘untalented’. From 1883 to 1885 he trained with the painter Hermann Eschke (1823-1900) and from 1885 to 1887 with the Norwegian painter Hans Fredrik Gude (1825-1903). Gude had a decisive influence on the style of Leistikow’s early works, as is especially clear in Leistikow’s light coastal landscapes with figures. His most significant work from this period, however, is Brickworks near Eckernförde (1887).

Leistikow’s dismissal from the Akademie concentrated his attention on issues of artistic policy. When the German government decided not to send works for exhibition in the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Leistikow himself organized the dispatch of works to Paris. In 1892, under a pseudonym, he wrote articles on the outraged German reaction to the work of Edvard Munch, sharply attacking the Akademie and its director, Anton von Werner. In the same year, he was one of the founders of the Gruppe der Elf, which led to the formation of Berlin Secession.

He painted impressionistic, atmospheric pictures of the Nordic landscape of forests and lakes. From 1890 he became influenced by Art Nouveau, Japanese woodcuts and Puvis de Chavannes. In 1898 his painting Lake Grunewald was rejected by the Great Berlin Exhibition.