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    Artist

  • Steiner-Prag, Hugo, 1880-1945

    • Title

  • Portrait of Paracelsus

  • Physical Description

    1 drawing : charcoal on paper ; 15.4 in. x 13.4 in. ; 39 x 34 centimeters

  • Date

    1923

  • Summary

    Dramatically lit face of older man, balding head with thick hair on the sides. Features indicate somewhat Promethean powers. Initialed STP 23, middle left.

    Verso: a much less dramatic draft of the finished portrait.

  • Depicted

    Paracelsus, 1493-1541

  • Subject

    Physicians

  • Genre

    Portraits

  • Medium

    Drawings

  • Accession Number

  • URL

Biographical/Historical Information

The physician and alchemist Paracelsus (aka Theophrastus von Hohenheim) was born in Einsiedeln, Switzerland in ca. 1493. He was a pioneer of the "medical revolution" in the Renaissance. Paracelsus died in Salzburg in 1541.

Hugo Steiner-Prag was born Hugo Steiner in Prague on December 12, 1880. He entered the Prague Academy of the Arts in 1897, and in 1900 he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He added the name of his native city to his last name to distinguish himself from other artists with the same name. Steiner-Prag transferred to the Lehr- und Versuchsstätte in Munich and later became a teacher there. During this time, he worked on illustrations of E.T.A. Hoffmann's stories, which cemented his reputation as an illustrator and book designer. In 1907 he was offered a position as professor at Leipzig's Royal Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Trade. Steiner-Prag also became art director of the Propylaeen publishing house in Berlin. In 1933 the Nazis terminated Steiner-Prag's position and he returned to Prague, where he established a private school for book arts and graphic design, called Officina Pragensis. In 1938, he set up a similar school in Stockholm. In 1941, he immigrated to the US where he taught at NYU. In 1943, he mounted a successful exhibition at the New York Public Library. Hugo Steiner-Prag suffered a heart attack and died on September 10, 1945 in New York City.

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Citation

Steiner-Prag, Hugo: Portrait of Paracelsus, Leo Baeck Institute, 78.1334.