Landscape-painter Edmund Steppes (1873-1968)

Edmund Steppes was a German painter who was born in 1873. Steppes emerged as an artist around 1900 in the company of Hans Thoma in Munich. When exhibiting his works in Heidelberg in 1906 he was discovered by art historian Henry Thode and promoted as a hope of German idealism.

Steppes Frühlingsdrängen features serialized deer in a golden field dotted with fir trees. His St. Hubertus, an allegorical scene with a wanderer stumbling across a holy stag in a gnarled, sublime forest, is similarly decorative. His paintings exhibited in the GDK were done in the same style (which was firmly in place during the 1920s), and he was also an artist purchased frequently by Hitler.

It was said that during Great German art exhibitions that were held annually in Munich from 1937 to 1944 Hitler bought the 16 paintings - by German artists such as Franz Eichhorst, Paul Herrmann, Sepp Hilz, Friedrich W. Kalb, Oscar Oestreicher, Edmund Steppes and Armin Reumann - in 1942 and 1943.
Landscape-painter Edmund Steppes (1873-1968)