Ludwig Dill

Ludwig Dill (Gernsbach, 1848 – Karlsruhe, 1940) was a German painter known mainly for his landscapes and a leading figure in the generation that renewed painting in Munich at the end of the nineteenth century. His significance lies in the bridge he built between academic realism, Impressionism and the new art of the early twentieth century, as well as in his role in the artistic life of Dachau.

The only son of a civil servant, Dill first trained as an architect in Stuttgart but, around 1874, entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Karl Theodor von Piloty. He soon turned towards the landscape circle around Adolf Lier, outside the academic mainstream. From the mid-1870s he travelled widely and found in the surroundings of Venice, especially Chioggia, one of his favourite subjects. His landscapes and seascapes, with their Impressionist colour, gradually moved towards an ornamental stylization close to Art Nouveau.

He co-founded the Munich Secession and presided over it from 1894 to 1899. His friendship with Adolf Hölzel proved decisive: in 1896 he bought a small house in Dachau, where, together with Hölzel and Arthur Langhammer, he helped establish the group "New Dachau". From 1899 to 1919 he taught at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts, returning to Dachau every summer.

His legacy is tied to the Dachau artists' colony, and streets in Dachau, Karlsruhe, Gernsbach and Vierkirchen bear his name today.