Draft:Otto von Kursell

Otto Konstantin Gottlieb von Kursell (* November 15 [July] / November 27, 1884 [Gregorian] in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire; † August 30, 1967 in Munich) was a German-Baltic painter and graphic artist, ministerial advisor and member of the Reichstag, director of the State Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg, and senator of the Prussian Academy of Arts.

Known as a master student of Franz von Stuck, Kursell quickly earned a reputation as a portrait painter. After World War I, he put his talent at the service of antisemitic and anticommunist movements. He published numerous political cartoons in which he pilloried Jews, Russians, and communists. He gave inflammatory speeches and actively participated in guard duties against Spartacists, as well as in field exercises and patrols. Through Alfred Rosenberg, he met Dietrich Eckart, who not only published his works but also recruited him to contribute to the magazine "In Plain German." In 1924, Kursell published portraits of the defendants in the Hitler trial. As one of the highly paid National Socialist artists, Kursell actively engaged in National Socialist propaganda in his work and teaching until the end of World War II.

Family

He came from the German-Baltic noble family Kursell and was the son of excise officer Woldemar von Kursell (1849–1915) and Luise Stolzenburg (1857–1944).

On August 12, 1908, in Reval (Estonia), Kursell married Julia Wencelides (* July 1, 1887 in St. Petersburg, Russia; † July 31, 1961 in Munich), the daughter of engineer and factory director Franz Wencelides and Luba Reuther.

Life

Early Years

Kursell attended the secondary school in Reval and completed a civil engineering degree at the Riga Polytechnic Institute between 1903 and 1905. He became a member of the politically active Corps Rubonia.

In 1905, Kursell moved to Dresden, where he studied architecture at the Technical University of Dresden from 1905 to 1907. From 1907 to 1911, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and quickly progressed from a student of Hugo von Habermann to a master student of Franz von Stuck. He soon achieved his first successes as a portrait painter.