Karl May

Karl May (German-Canadian, 1901–1976).

This work is offered unframed.

Karl May was born in Bohemia and studied in Prague and Vienna where he was associated with the artistic movements of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter. He received the Rome Prize and was subsequently appointed to a professorship at the Prague Academy of Art. He exhibited his work successfully during the early 1930s, however, with the rise of Nazism, his modernist tendencies led to the condemnation of his work. His paintings were included in the 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition in Berlin and, later, confiscated and destroyed by the National Socialist Government. In 1952, May traveled to Canada as an artistic adviser to the Canadian International Trade Fair and, subsequently, became a Canadian citizen, settling in the May Valley of the Laurentians north of Montreal. For the next 25 years, he exhibited widely and with success and was the recipient of numerous prizes, medals and juried awards. Karl May is listed in the Vollmer supplement to Thieme Becker's definitive dictionary of artists, and his work is held in prominent private and public collections including the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Signed 'May' lower left