Carl Cowen Schirm

The landscape painter, photographer and inventor Professor Carl Cowen Schirm first studied chemistry and physics before devoting himself to art.

From 1874/75 he attended the Grand Ducal Baden Art School in Karlsruhe and became a master student of Prof. Hans Fredrik Gude. From 1883 to 1889, Schirm worked as head of the landscape painting studio at the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau.

Schirm traveled a lot. First he was drawn to the Lüneburg Heath and the Scottish Highlands. His painting trips continued with his friends and fellow artists such as Eugen Bracht and Adolf von Meckel to the Middle East to Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt and to Abala on the Red Sea. And he was drawn - around 1887/1888 - to Lübeck in the Trave and Baltic Sea regions, which he captured on his journey in quiet, deserted subjects.

The inventor

Carl Cowen Schirm received numerous patents for his developments and research in the field of photography. He opened his photo studio at Potsdamer Straße 20 in Berlin. Kaiser Wilhelm II was one of his customers. He worked with his brother-in-law, the sculptor and ceramist Professor Otto Lessing, from 1889 to 1907.

Schirm took part in various dome and wall paintings. For example for the Palazzo Caffarelli in Rome or for the “Sedan Panorama” under the direction of Anton von Werner.

In the last decade of his life, Schirm left Berlin and moved to the Lüneburg Heath, to Amelinghausen, Lüneburg district. There he devoted himself again to landscape painting.

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