Paul Kayser (22 September 1869, in Hamburg – 23 September 1942, in Donaueschingen) was a German painter and graphic artist.

Biography

He began with an apprenticeship as a decorative painter at the firm of Wirth & Bay then, from 1886 to 1889, attended the Königliche Kunstgewerbeschule München, followed by the Kunstgewerbeschule Dresden [de]. From 1890 to 1894, he worked as a decorative painter in Hamburg.

In 1902, he married Melanie Hertz, daughter of the physicist Heinrich Hertz, and they had two children. At that time, he was a private art teacher.

From 1906 to 1939 (interrupted by service in Schleswig during World War I) he taught at the art school operated by Gerda Koppel [de]. Due to the destruction resulting from World War II, he left Hamburg in 1941 to settle in Donaueschingen, on the Swiss border, where he died one year later.

He was a founding member of the Hamburgischer Künstlerklub [de] and, from 1897, a participant in the Hamburgische Sezession [de], a group of young artists and writers, modelled on the Munich Secession. He was also a member of the Altonaer Künstlerverein [de]. His style was heavily influenced by Albert Marquet, whom he had met in 1909, and reunited with during a trip to Paris in 1933. His notable works include two large paintings that were created as decorations for the ocean liner SS Imperator.

His works were part of a major exhibition in 2019: Hamburger Schule – Das 19. Jahrhundert neu entdeckt at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Selected paintings

• 
  View from Gerda Koppel's Art School
• 
  On the Elbe
• 
  Still-life
• 
  Venice
• 
  Interior with Melanie

Sources

• Carsten Meyer-Tönnesmann (2004), Paul Kayser (1869–1942) – Bilder aus Hamburg Ausstellung in der Hamburger Sparkasse … 18. Februar – 8. April 2004 (in German), Hamburg, OCLC 249453460((citation)): CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburger Ansichten. Maler sehen die Stadt. Wienand Verlag, Köln 2009, ISBN 978-3-86832-018-3, pg.190.
• Anna Lena Meyer: Paul Kayser, Maler. In: Olaf Matthes and Ortwin Pelc: Menschen in der Revolution. Hamburger Porträts 1918/19. Husum Verlag, Husum 2018, ISBN 978-3-89876-947-1, pgs.92–94.
• Kayser, Paul. In: Ernst Rump (Ed.): Lexikon der bildenden Künstler Hamburgs, Altonas und der näheren Umgebung. Bröcker, Hamburg 1912
• Kayser, Paul. In: Hans Vollmer (Ed.): Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Vol. 20: Kaufmann–Knilling. E. A. Seemann, Leipzig 1927, pg.46