Christian Schad

Christian Schad was a German painter and photographer associated with the New Objectivity movement. He is known for his realistic portraits and still life paintings that often featured everyday objects and people.

Schad was born on August 21, 1894, in Miesbach, Bavaria, Germany. He studied art in Munich and participated in the German Expressionist movement in the early 1920s. In 1925, he moved to Switzerland, where he continued to develop his style and experimented with new techniques.

During the 1920s, Schad became interested in photography and began to incorporate photographic techniques into his paintings. He developed a unique style that combined the precision of photography with the emotional depth of painting. His portraits of his wife, Marcella, are among his most famous works and are considered to be some of the finest examples of New Objectivity art.

In the 1930s, Schad returned to Germany and continued to produce paintings and photographs. However, the rise of the Nazi party and the restrictions they placed on artistic expression forced him to abandon his work and go into hiding. After the end of World War II, he returned to Switzerland, where he continued to paint and take photographs until his death on February 25, 1982, in Stuttgart, Germany.

Today, Schad is remembered as an important figure in the New Objectivity movement and a pioneer of photographic realism in painting. His work has been exhibited in major museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.