Lot 82: AR Louis Henry Weston Klingender (British, 1861-1950) Guardians of the temple

Louis Henry Weston Klingender (British, 1861-1950)
Guardians of the temple signed and dated 'L.H.W.Klingender./1927.' (lower right)oil on canvas107 x 138cm (42 1/8 x 54 5/16in).
Of Hugenot descent, Louis Klingender was born in Liverpool in 1861. Aged 20 he emigrated to Dusseldorf and enrolled at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf to study under Karl Friedrich Deiker. Deiker specialised in animal painting, generally painting hunting scenes or large beasts, such as stags or wild boar, depicted majestically or in conflict in their natural environment. Klingender also often travelled to Wernigerode in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and as a guest of Otto Graf zu Stolberg-Wernigerode he was able to study red deer and boar in the woods around Schloss Wernigerode.In 1894 Klingender married Florence Hoette and the couple moved to Kronberg where he became a member of the Kronberg painting colony, which included such artists as Adolf Schreyer and Anton Burger. By this time his reputation had grown through regular exhibits at the Berlin Academia. In 1902 he moved to Goslar, where he set up his studio and became a leading light in the cultural life of the city. Five years later his son Francis Donald was born; Francis was to become a well-known Marxist sociologist and art historian.In 1902, the couple moved to Goslar where Klingender set up his studio in the back of the museum building on Breite Strasse. He soon became central to the cultural life of the city, scientific as well as artistic, however with the outbreak of war he was regarded as a potential spy interned in a camp near Berlin.By the end of the war animal paintings -particularly on a grand 'Romantic' scale- had become less fashionable and after a further ten years in Goslar, the Klingender family moved back to England. Life was equally tough for the artist in London and the family lived in relative poverty. In 1944 the couple divorced and Florence returned to Germany; Louis died in 1950.