Franz Bronstert

Franz Bronstert (18 February 1895 – 29 October 1967) was a German engineer and painter.

Franz Bronstert was born to the teacher for arts and music Bernhard Bronstert and his wife Luise (from the Breil-family) in Dorsten. Before World War I Bronstert visited and finished the superior school for engineers in Hagen. He served during the war in the rank of Lieutenant and later „Rittmeister" equivalent to Captain. As a prisoner of war at Ripon, Yorkshire he got into contact with artists Fritz Fuhrken and Georg Philipp Wörlen and started with his own artistic work. These contacts led to the foundation of the group of artists „Der Fels" (The Rock) which was later completed by Reinhard Hilker and Carry Hauser.

Past the war he settled in Hagen and made contact with the group around collector Karl Ernst Osthaus especially with Christian Rohlfs. The latter influenced the work of Bronstert considerably. During this time a life-time friendship with Alfred Kubin developed. Membership in „Der Fels" led to numerous exhibitions all over Germany and Austria between 1921 and 1927. Eight portfolios with original prints of "Der Fels" were also published during this time.

His participation in exhibitions of Das Junge Rheinland(Young Rhineland) is also known of as well as participation in the group exhibition of Hagenring at Museum Osnabrück 1929.

Bronstert’s art developed from radical expressionism of the early twenties to a realistic phase and finally to a reformed impressionism as the artist claims himself. Bronstert finds his motifs mostly in nature.

Even though Bronstert mastered several techniques, like oil painting, drawing, woodcut it was the watercolour painting that he loved most.

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