Walther Bötticher

Walter Bötticher, a painter and graphic artist from the circle of Karl Ernst Osthaus, who founded the Folkwang Museum in 1902 in Hagen, initially studied at the Kunstschule Weimar in 1906, then at the Lehr- and Versuchsatelier für angewandte und freie Kunst (Debschitz School) in Munich. He was later taught by Christian Rohlfs who had moved to Hagen in 1901. In 1907/08 the two shared a studio in Hetschburg near Weimar. In 1910 Bötticher moved to Berlin where he became acquainted with Emil Nolde and the artists’ association Die Brücke. In 1911 he returned to his native town again. His work was shown in solo or group exhibitions at the Museum Folkwang in 1911–15 and was also published in the magazines ‘Cicerone’, ‘Kunstchronik’, ‘Die Rheinlande’ and ‘Xenien’ from 1911 onwards. Osthaus praised the young artist: “He is one of the group which has Matisse in France and Nolde in Germany as their leader. [...] Whoever wants to see where our hopes for the future of art lie, will have to take note of this artist’s name.” In 1912 Bötticher was represented at the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne that was primarily organised by Alfred Flechtheim and Osthaus. After Bötticher’s early death as a soldier in World War I, a commemorative exhibition first held in the museum in Hagen and later, in 1920, at the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim in Düsseldorf, focussed on the Expressionist painter’s œuvre.