Konrad Cramer

Konrad Cramer (1888-1963) was a German-American painter often considered an important link in bringing German modernism to America. Born in Wurtzburg, Germany, Cramer trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and was influenced by the avant-garde Munich expressionist movement, Der Blaue Reiter. Cramer employed oil, watercolor, and ink in a loose, free flowing style to depict landscapes and still lifes. From that subject matter, he switched to Cubism, inspired by Cezanne's planes of light technique. In 1911, he married American art student Florence Ballin and immigrated to America, where he began his distinguished career. In 1913, he established his American reputation with a pioneering series of abstract paintings and became one of Americas first modernist painters. His post-World War I style became a fusion of European modernism with imagery of American culture, such as common household objects, an amalgam of both to his early objective work in Germany and his subsequent abstract work. With his wife he founded and directed the Woodstock, New York Art Association and the Woodstock School of Painting.