Erich Kaatz – Alpine Landscape 1939

Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right “E. Kaatz 39.”

A quiet sub-alpine scene organized in three planes: a foreground knoll with a path and spruce, a glassy lake with crisp mirror reflections, and a limestone massif with a rounded summit. The compact turquoise lake and spruce belt suggest a Swiss Prealpine setting, plausibly Lac Lioson under Pic Chaussy (Alpes vaudoises), although we are uncertain. Kaatz paints in clear light with restrained, natural color: cool blue-greens on the water, warm stone and meadow tones on the middle slopes, and darker spruce framing at left and right. The composition leads the eye from path to shoreline, across the reflection, and up to the buttressed peak.

Erich Kaatz (1909, Hoppendorf near Danzig – 1971, Wiesbaden)
German painter trained in Königsberg, Munich, and Berlin; pupil of Curt Lahs. He maintained a Berlin studio until it was destroyed in a 1944 air raid, with significant loss of early work. After the war he continued to paint and teach, later active around Wiesbaden and associated with the post-war Künstlergruppe 50. His subjects range from Alpine and lakeside landscapes to Mediterranean town views, in oil, watercolor, and ink. References: Auktionshaus and dealer records summarizing his training with Lahs, studies in Königsberg/Munich/Berlin, 1944 studio loss, and Wiesbaden activity.