Edward Cucuel
(San Francisco 1875 - Pasadena 1954)
Edward Cucuel was born the son of a newspaper publisher in San Francisco, where he attended the art academy in his hometown at the age of 14. In his teenage years he worked as an illustrator for the newspaper 'The Examiner'. At the age of seventeen he was sent to Paris, where he entered the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. He later switched to Jean Léon Gérôme at the Académie des Beaux Arts.
In 1896 Edward Cucuel returned to America and settled in New York. For half a year Cucuel worked again as a newspaper illustrator, then he returned to Paris and devoted himself to fine art. After two years in Paris, he traveled to France and Italy, where he studied the old masters.
For some time, Edward Cucuel lived in Berlin where he worked mainly as an illustrator. In 1907 he moved to Munich, which was to become his home for a long time. There Cucuel joined the artist group 'Scholle'. Leo Putz was the outstanding artistic personality of this group and Edward Cucuel worked with him for four years at Hartmannsberg Castle on Lake Chiemsee. In Munich he took part in the exhibitions of the Munich Secession. In 1912 Cucuel exhibited successfully in Paris.
Edward Cucuel's painterly oeuvre is strongly reminiscent of the French Impressionists in terms of color and motif. Preferred motifs are portraits of women and nudes in light-flooded interiors, plein-air depictions with social scenes and charming Bavarian landscapes. From 1914 to 1918 Cucuel was based in Holzhausen am Ammersee, where he had a wonderful property with a forest and lake view. Especially his summer motifs with blooming gardens or forest scenes, on the lake shore and with a jetty were created here. Later he set up studios in Munich and Starnberg, where he painted his boat motifs. Cucuel spent the summers there from 1928 and through the winter months until 1934 he stayed regularly in New York.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Edward Cucuel finally left Germany in 1939 and settled in the Californian city of Pasadena, where he lived until his death in 1954.