"Bringing the Museum to You"

The Cyber Art Show continues our study of landscape artists in the Public Domain with a ten-piece exhibition of works by another German Impressionist painter and printmaker, Lesser Ury (1861-1931), who was associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Born in Birnbaum, Ury was the son of a baker. When his father died in 1872, he moved with his family to Berlin.

In 1878 Lesser left school to apprentice with a tradesman, and the next year he went to Düsseldorf to study painting at the Kunstakademie. Ury spent time in Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart, and other locations, before returning to Berlin in 1887. His first exhibition was in 1889 and met with a hostile reception, although he was championed byAdolph von Menzel, whose influence induced the Akademie to award Ury a prize. In 1893 he joined the Munich Secession, one of the several Secessions formed by progressive artists in Germany and Austria in the last years of the 19th century. In 1901 he returned to Berlin, where he exhibited with the Berlin Secession, first in 1915 and notably in 1922, when he had a major exhibition.

As Ury's critical reputation grew, his paintings and pastels were in demand. His subjects were Impressionistic landscapes, urban landscapes, and interior scenes, and he was especially noted for his paintings of nocturnal cafe scenes and rainy streets. Always introverted and distrustful of people, Ury became increasingly reclusive in his later years. He died in Berlin and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee.