Edward Cucuel (American painter) 1875 - 1954
Edward Cucuel (August 6, 1875, San Francisco - April 18, 1954, Pasadena, California), was an American-born painter who lived and worked in Germany. Cucuel was born in San Francisco, where he studied at the San Francisco School of Design. He continued his training in Paris in the 1890s, at the Académie Colorossi and at the Académie Julian, and finally at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. It was in Paris that he developed a successful career as a freelance illustrator for several European journals, including Le Figaro and L'Illustration. In 1899 he moved to Berlin where he met his wife, the artist Clara Lotte von Marcard. In Berlin, Cucuel began painting with renewed vigour in 1907, following his meeting with Impressionist painter Leo Putz, whose influence is unmistakable in the American's works. The two artists spent summers together at Putz's Hartmannsdorf Castle, where they hired models to pose for them in the grounds of the estate. Later, Cucuel moved his studio to Munich, frequently painting en plein air at his lakeside property on Lake Starnberg in Bavaria Cucuel's property fronted the lake, with its own private jetty, on which the artist often had his models pose. Although an American, Cucuel adopted Germany as his home and enjoyed huge success there as the painter of fashionably dressed young women boating, picnicking and bathing in the outdoors.
