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Nicolaus Kremer

German, c. 1500 - 1553

Biography

Relatively little is known about Nicolaus Kremer. He was born c. 1500, and in 1521 married Christina zum Han, a brewer's daughter, in Strasbourg, acquiring citizenship in that city and joining the artists' guild. Between 1521 and 1547 he is mentioned several times in Strasbourg documents. In 1523 Jost Krieg is listed as a pupil in Kremer's workshop, and in 1531/1532 the artist was paid by the city for two sundials. After the death of his first wife, Kremer in 1538 married Dorothea Büheler, the daughter of a Nuremberg artist living in Strasbourg.

Kremer is documented as acquiring in 1545 the artistic estate of Hans Baldung Grien, which included a lock of Albrecht's Dürer's hair. Based on the purchase of Baldung's artistic goods and the attribution to Kremer of a drawing of the Madonna Adoring the Child, dated 1519, and clearly derived from Baldung in style and chiaroscuro technique, it is assumed that Kremer was a member of Hans Baldung Grien's workshop. He executed both drawings and paintings, the subject matter being mostly portraits and religious scenes.

It has been suggested that, as a consequence of the Reformation, Kremer left Strasbourg sometime after 1547 and moved to the nearby city of Baden-Baden. Nicolaus Kremer died in 1553 and his gravestone in the town of Ottersweier (Bühl) cites him as a citizen.

[Hand, John Oliver, with the assistance of Sally E. Mansfield. German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1993: 115.]

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