Dora Hitz

German (1856-1924)

The painter Dora Hitz was a key figure in the Berlin art scene at the turn of the century. Hitz was not only a member of avant-garde groups such as the “Group of Eleven,” but was also one of the founding members of the Berliner Secession, along with Max Liebermann. Hitz was part of an international art scene spanning across Europe: she worked in the Romanian Royal Court, in Paris and in Florence. Her friends and contemporaries included Harry Graf Kessler and Max Beckmann.

Hitz was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1856. When she was six years old, her family moved to Ansbach and at thirteen she was sent to Munich to study at the “Damenmalschule der Frau Staatsrat Weber,” an art school for young women, where she studied with Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger. At the Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1876, she met and became acquainted with the Queen consort of Romania. As a result, Hitz was appointed as the court painter to the Romanian Royal Family. In 1882 she moved to Paris, where she studied with Luc-Olivier Merson, Gustave Courtois, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Eugene Carriere, who most influenced her style. She traveled throughout Brittany and Normandy and, in 1890, became a member of the Salon of the Societe des Artistes Francais. From 1892, she was a regular participant in the exhibitions of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts. Although she had been and would continue to be successful in Paris, she moved to Berlin in 1892 and joined the “Vereins Berliner Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen” (an association of female artists) that gave her access to many upper middle-class clients who commissioned portraits. She founded a women’s art school in 1894, operated a studio and struck up a friendship with Kathe Kollwitz. Hitz exhibited her work at the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In 1898, she was one of the founding members of the Berliner Secession. She was awarded the Villa Romana Prize in 1906, which included a stipendium that enabled her to spend a year in Florence.

Works of Dora Hitz are in the collections of the Alte Nationalgalerie,  Berlin; the Museum der Bildenden Künste,  Leipzig; and Museum of Modern Art, New York.