20th-century German painters

Georg Friedrich Zundel (13 October 1875 in Iptingen, Wiernsheim – 7 June 1948 in Stuttgart) was a German painter, farmer and art patron.
At the age of fourteen, he went to Pforzheim, where he successfully finished an apprenticeship as a painter in 1891. He then worked as a scene painter at a Frankfurt theatre for six years, before deciding to study art in Karlsruhe, later in Stuttgart, in 1897/98. He was, however, expelled from the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, after organising a student protest (strike).
His rebellious behaviour was mainly sparked by socialist ideas, that he had taken up in the previous years; in this context, he wanted to fight exploitation and repression of workers. Around the same time, he began a relationship with the much older socialist and feminist editor, politician and translator Clara Zetkin. They married in 1899. From 1903 until their separation in 1928, they lived at a house in Sillenbuch, outside of Stuttgart, where many socialist leaders visited them (most famously Vladimir Lenin in 1907).
In his early years, Zundel painted in the style of realism, mostly choosing socialist motives, often very detailed portrayals of working-class people. He also designed posters and interiors of homes for workers. Later, in the 1910s, he began to focus more on religious and mythological motives. This led to increasing estrangement between Clara Zetkin and him; they split and divorced in 1927.

The following year, Zundel married Paula Bosch, daughter of the industrialist Robert Bosch, whom he had known (and once portrayed) since she had been a child. The couple moved into a farmhouse on a hill, the so-called "Berghof", near Tübingen, which Zundel himself had designed in 1921, and which had been financed by Robert Bosch for his daughters. He started to work as a farmer, painting occasionally, with the focus on idealistic and Christian motives. Paula's and his son Georg (later a famous physical chemist and philanthropist) was born in 1931.
Zundel died in Stuttgart in 1948 and was buried at Tübingen's Stadtfriedhof (site of the graves of Friedrich Hölderlin and Ludwig Uhland).
His widow Paula and her sister Margarete Fischer-Bosch founded Tübingen's now most famous museum, the Kunsthalle Tübingen, in honour of Zundel, in 1971.

Annot (née Anna Ottilie Krigar-Menzel; December 27, 1894 – October 20, 1981), also known after her marriage as Annot Jacobi, was a German painter, art teacher, art writer and pacifist. As a result of political hostility in Germany, she spent much of her life in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Rudolf Levy (15 July 1875, in Stettin – January 1944, in Italy or Auschwitz) was a German expressionist painter of Jewish ancestry.

Johannes Theodor Baargeld was a pseudonym of Alfred Emanuel Ferdinand Grünwald (9 October 1892 – 16 or 17 August 1927), a German painter and poet who, together with Max Ernst, founded the Cologne Dada group. He also used the name Zentrodada in connection with Dada.
Baargeld was born in Stettin (Szczecin), Prussian Pomerania. He studied jurisprudence at Oxford and Bonn. Baargeld was the editor of the periodical The Fan (Der Ventilator) which Ernst and Hans Arp started in 1919, and he collaborated on many other Dadaist publications such as Bulletin D and Dada W/3.

Martin Feuerstein (after 1914, Martin Ritter von Feuerstein; 6 January 1856, Barr - 13 February 1931, Munich) was a German painter and art teacher. He was a late adherent of the Nazarene movement, but was also heavily influenced by impressionism and Art Nouveau.

Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth Freiin[1] Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Baroness Hilla von Rebay or simply Hilla Rebay (31 May 1890 – 27 September 1967), was an abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She was a key figure in advising Solomon R. Guggenheim to collect abstract art, a collection that would later form the basis of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collection. She was also influential in selecting Frank Lloyd Wright to design the current Guggenheim museum, which is now known as a modernist icon in New York City.

Hermann Pleuer (5 April 1863, in Schwäbisch Gmünd – 6 January 1911, in Stuttgart) was a German Impressionist and landscape artist who is best known for his paintings of the Royal Württemberg State Railways.

Bernhard Hoetger (4 May 1874 in Dortmund – 18 July 1949 in Interlaken) was a German sculptor, painter and handicrafts artist of the Expressionist movement.

Alexander Kanoldt (29 September 1881 – 24 January 1939) was a German magic realist painter and one of the artists of the New Objectivity.

Josefa Berens-Totenohl (30 March 1891, in Grevenstein, Sauerland – 6 June 1969) was a German writer and painter.
She was the daughter of a blacksmith. First she became a teacher, but later worked as a writer and painter and made elaborate tapestries. Her romantic peasant novels were very popular in Nazi Germany; although she never joined the Nazi Party, and the novels had no ideological overtones, their praise of peasant virtue, rootedness, and strength were acceptable to the party.