Frank Duveneck - The Old Professor - 19.96 - Museum of Fine Arts

He was born into a family of German immigrants. After the death of his father, Bernhard Dekker, Frank's mother remarries, and the boy takes his stepfather's surname. He begins to study painting in Cincinnati. Portrait of Frank Duveneck by Dixie Selden In 1869 Duveneck leaves for Germany and enters the Royal Academy of Art in Munich, in the class of William Chase. Upon graduation, he opens his own art studio in Munich. In 1873 Duveneck returned to America and for two years he taught at the Ohio Mechanics Institute. In 1875 he is in Munich again, in 1876 the artist goes to Paris, and the following year for nine months in Venice. In 1879 he makes a new trip to Italy. In 1886, Duveneck married his student, 20-year-old Boston-born artist Elizabeth Butt (who was then living in Florence and studying painting with Duveneck). Two years later, Elizabeth dies in Paris of pneumonia. Having survived this tragedy, Frank temporarily abandoned painting and turned to sculpture. At the beginning of his artistic way F. Duvenek paints mainly portraits in a realistic manner. After his stay in France and Italy, he also painted landscapes and domestic scenes, gradually evolving towards impressionism. He painted both oil paintings and etchings.