Seel, Georg Ludwig (Louis)

painter

born: 25.04.1881 in Niederlahnstein

died: 13.11.1958 in Wiesbaden

After attending boarding school in Geneva, Seel studied architecture at the TH Karlsruhe, but then transferred to the art academy there. From 1902-05 he was a member of the painting class at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main.

From 1905, Seel lived in Paris, where he became friends with Henri Matisse and cultivated contact with the "Fauves". Through his impressions of the works of Pierre Bonnard, André Derain and Marie Laurencin, Seel opened himself up to the avant-garde discourse and his painting was now characterized by polychromy. He met Rudolf Levy and Hans Purrmann, who personified the German variant in this prelude to modernism. Seel reacted spontaneously and radically to progressive ideas, probably most confidently to Orphism as vehemently developed by Robert Delaunay, one of the main pioneers of abstract art.

Seel's works are based on the decomposition of the impression of light and evoke ideas of movement through the simultaneity of colors. In 1914, as an avowed Frenchman by choice, he went into exile in Spain, where he created symphonically structured compositions in the form of large landscapes, architectural scenes and portraits. In 1920, when Seel was back in Paris, he created the "Abstract Landscape with Self-Portrait", a homage to Wassily Kandinsky.

From 1925, he continued his career as an artist in the south of France because he was able to increase the luminosity of his colors in the reliable light. This second period of high productivity ended with the "Great Entombment" of 1937, the year of his mother's death. In order to avoid internment, he returned to Wiesbaden two years later. Here he lived in seclusion and deep resignation after suffering many times. He was buried in the family vault in the North Cemetery.