BURGKMAIR Hans

‘il Vecchio’ (Ausburg 1473- 1531)

Painter and German engraver, son of painter Thomas Burgkmair.

His artistic apprenticeship, initially started at his father’s shop, was subsequently refined at Colmar at the studio of Martin Schongauer.

His artistic taste has been greatly influenced by the art of both Dürer and Schongauer.
Because of his repeated stays in Italy, especially in Venice, he was able to take important creative and stylistic ideas from Italian masters, particularly from Carpaccio.

Although he was an author of fine paintings, he devoted himself mainly to xylography, according to the numerous imperial commissions that required portraits of ancestors and nobles, compositions referring to vices and virtues, to battles and to planets. Burgkmair’s xilographic work includes numerous tables for the Weisskünig, a series devoted to the life and glory of Emperor Maximilian I, to which he added several drawings related to his Triumphs, reaching epic tones.

He married Hans Holbein the Elder’s sister, and their son, Hans Burgkmair the Younger (1500 ca.-1559), was also a painter and engraver, active in Augsburg too. He died in Ausgburg in 1531.