Two brave dogs, this original etching was executed by well-known German animal painter, graphic artist and illustrator Kurt (also Curt) Meyer-Eberhardt (1895 in Leipzig - 1977 in Munich). Actually Kurt Ernst Meyer, artist name since 1916 with the addition of the maiden name of the mother.

He is known to a wide audience for his well-versed depictions of animals, often aiming at emotion and humor (drypoint color etchings). These were printed by Hanfstaengl Verlag from 1916 until after his death. [1] His early work up to the beginning of the 1920s reflects various art movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His later painting and graphic work on his own commission - especially landscapes, animal portraits and still lifes - are considered to be a contribution to the tradition of a realistic Munich school.

Kurt Meyer-Eberhardt grew up in Erfurt since 1899. From 1912 to 1917 he studied at the Grand Ducal Saxon University of Fine Arts in Weimar with Max Thedy, Theodor Hagen and Walther Klemm, whose master class he became in 1916. As a student he tried out portraits, interiors and animal representations as well as impressionistic landscape painting and etching techniques, since 1915 with interruptions due to short-term military service and the beginning of freelance work in Munich.

In the winter semester of 1919/1920 Meyer-Eberhardt returned from Munich to Weimar to the newly founded State Bauhaus. There he attended the nude and portrait course with Lyonel Feininger, possibly also sporadically the preliminary course from Johannes Itten. On July 1, 1920, he married the Bauhaus student Luise Gertrud Neumann († 1965) and finally moved to Munich in the same year.

In the war and early post-war years (1915 to 1920) he created drypoint etchings typical of the time, which mostly thematize marginalized groups (unemployed, brothel, circus) and suggest both melancholy and satirical tones. This graphic, as well as some study sheets and a painting from his Bauhaus period, document his exploration of expressionist and cubist forms well into the early 1920s. In the following he turned back to an impressionistic and naturalistic art.

Since the mid-1920s, its existence has been increasingly shaped by the dualism of artistic livelihoods - through animal etchings and common hunting images - and independent work in the "inner emigration". Meyer-Eberhardt´s watercolors and pastels of circus poodles (late 1920s / early 1930s) and his cycle of abandoned war horses Memento mori (from 1945) are considered a sensitive, time-critical contribution to animal portraits, while humans disappear from his work in the second creative phase.

From 1972 he received a lifelong honorary salary from the city of Munich. Meyer-Eberhardt´s studio was at Gedonstrasse 6 in Munich-Schwabing.

Inscription: signed by the author in pencil under image lower right.

Technique: Original etching on paper. Original period frame.

Measurements: unframed w. 13 1/4" x h 15 1/2" (33,7 x 39,5 cm), framed w. 14" x h. 16 1/3" (35,5 x 41,5 cm).

Condition: in very good condition.