Max Peiffer Watenphul (1896 – 13 July 1976) was a German artist. Described as a "lyric poet of painting", he belongs to a "tradition of German painters for whom the Italian landscape represented Arcadia." In addition to Mediterranean scenes, he regularly depicted Salzburg and painted many still lifes of flowers. As well as oil paintings, his extensive body of work encompasses watercolours, drawings, enamel, textiles, graphic art, and photographs.
Life and work
Childhood, youth and student years
Max Peiffer Watenphul was the son of Karl Josef Emil Peiffer, a dispensing chemist, and his wife Anna. His father died in 1903. Three years later, in 1906, his mother married Dr. Heinrich Watenphul, a master at the grammar school in Quedlinburg. His family lived there until 1911 before moving to Hattingen, a town on the River Ruhr, where Max's stepfather, who also wrote books on Middle Latin poetry, had been appointed headmaster of the local grammar school. It was also the school now attended by Max Peiffer. His half-sister Grace was born in 1913. Max Peiffer passed his Abitur in 1914. In compliance with his parents’ wishes, Max began to study medicine in Bonn, but then soon enrolled at the law faculty and studied law in Strasbourg, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. It was in Munich, in Goltz's bookshop, that he first set eyes on the works of Paul Klee; he was later to meet Klee in person. He obtained his doctorate in Würzburg in 1918 with a thesis on church law and then took his trainee barrister's examination. There then followed several months’ military training at an army barracks in Mülheim/Ruhr. In 1919 he became a trainee barrister at the district court in Hattingen and, in that same year, adopted the double surname of Peiffer Watenphul. By the autumn of that year he had decided to become a painter and gave up his legal career.
Travels and friendships
In 1919 Max Peiffer Watenphul enrolled as a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Walter Gropius gave him permission to sit in on all workshop classes. He was given his own studio and attended Johannes Itten’s famous introductory course. It was around this time that he befriended Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky, Gerhard Marcks, Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Kurt Schwitters and Else Lasker-Schüler. Peiffer Watenphul resided in Weimar until the end of 1923. From 1920 he was a member of the “Junges Rheinland” group of artists in Düsseldorf, making friends with Otto Dix (who painted his portrait), Werner Gilles, Otto Pankok and Max Ernst. The art dealer Alfred Flechtheim placed Max Peiffer Watenphul under contract with his gallery, thus largely ensuring the young artist's financial independence. In 1920 he was able to travel, for the very first time, to Salzburg and Vienna, and in 1921 he had his first exhibition, arranged by Ernst Gosebruch, at the Municipal Art Museum in Essen. His first trip to Italy followed in November 1921, taking him via Rome and Naples to Positano. In 1922 he worked in the enamelling workshop of his former fellow Bauhaus student Maria Cyrenius in Salzburg. While in Essen he made the acquaintance of Alexei Jawlensky. On 1 July 1924, Peiffer Watenphul travelled on a cargo ship via Cuba to Mexico, where he stayed for almost a whole year. During 1925 he visited Jawlensky several times in Wiesbaden, where he exhibited his works at the art museum. There then followed a trip to Ragusa, Dalmatia, with Maria Cyrenius and a trip to the South of France, Paris, Florence and Rome. From 1927 until 1931 he worked as a teacher of "general artistic design" at the Folkwang School in Essen, where Max Burchartz and Grete Willers, who had been students together with Peiffer Watenphul at the Bauhaus in Weimar, were also teachers. Stays in Berlin and trips to Paris (where he met Karli Sohn-Rethel and Florence Henri) followed, as well as travels to the South of France and Morocco together with the collector Klaus Gebhard. Peiffer Watenphul's interest in photography, which had begun during his Bauhaus years, was developed in greater depth at the Folkwang School. In 1931 he terminated his teaching post there and, in that same year, was awarded the Rome Prize.