Paul Nietsche RUA (1885-1950)
Villeneuve-Les-Avignon
Oil on canvas, 50 x 61cm (19¾ x 24'')
Signed and dated (19)'33; also signed and inscribed verso

Paul Nietsche (1885-1950) was born in...

Paul Nietsche RUA (1885-1950)
Villeneuve-Les-Avignon
Oil on canvas, 50 x 61cm (19¾ x 24'')
Signed and dated (19)'33; also signed and inscribed verso

Paul Nietsche (1885-1950) was born in Kiev, Ukraine to Lutheran German parents, his father being a lithographic printer with an interest in art. At an early age the family moved to Odessa where Paul later attended the Imperial Art Academy.

In 1908 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich before moving to Paris where he became friendly with the sculptor Auguste Rodin. He is listed as having exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1912. He returned to Odessa in 1914 at the outbreak of war, then moving to Berlin at the cessation of the hostilities to join his family. While in Berlin, Paul developed a friendship with Michael OBrien from Dublin, an undergraduate student at the University there.

On taking up a lectureship at Queens University in Belfast in 1926, Dr. OBrien invited Nietsche to the city and within a few months he had begun exhibiting at the Ulster Art Club. Over the course of the next few years he did a great deal of travelling around Europe and North America, but regularly returned to Northern Ireland where he continued to exhibit. Two paintings are listed as having been exhibited at the 1930 RHA Annual Exhibition in Dublin both Still Life studies.

Nietsche exhibited at the Brook Street Art Galleries in London in 1934, including a view at Villeneuvelès-Avignon, the subject of one of the present works. During the Second World War he was interned on the Isle of Man for a period. Returning to Belfast, he settled there having acquired a studio at 76 Dublin Road, where he lived and worked until his death in 1950. Highly regarded by his peers and art critics alike, a retrospective exhibition was held at the Arts Council Gallery in Belfast in 1984.

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