Willy Becker (1903-1987) German, Landscape Oil on Canvas. Depicts a chalet in the Swiss Alps with the mountains majestically rising in the distance. Signed bottom right. 

Frame: 26 3/4 x 32 3/4 in. 

Sight: 12 1/2 x 27 in. 

#7440 . 

Wilhelm “Willy” Becker was born in Dresden, Germany in 1903. As a child he observed the horrors of conflict during World War I, and the toll it took on his family, which led him to be a conscientious objector the rest of his life. In 1925 he traveled to Italy to attend the Accademia Carrara (now known as the Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti di Bergamo) in Bergamo, in Lombardy in northern Italy. He devoted much time to painting outside, and contemplating the Swiss Alps in his works. This eventually led him to continue his studies in Switzerland in 1929, spending two years among plein air painters focused almost exclusively on mountain vistas. When he returned to Dresden in 1931 he painted the city extensively and studied at the Art Academy, but began to take trips to Spain, France, and Austria for inspiration and to avoid the growing political and racial issues plaguing his homeland. Although he maintained a studio in Dresden, he spent most of his time in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) on the border between Czech lands and Germany, and it was here he was stuck when World War II began. Although he refused to fight on behalf of the Nazis, he was nevertheless granted forgiveness by Adolf Ziegler on behalf of the Reich Culture Chamber, since his landscapes “dignified and honored Aryan lands, people, and culture,” and spent the war as an exile in his own country. He lived through the infamous firebombing of Dresden in February of 1945 that claimed some 25,000 lives, but lost his studio and all of his work. Although he continued to paint for the rest of his life in the post-War period he was heavily traumatized and was never as proficient again. His later works, while still capturing beautiful countryside and people, show darker colors, a looser approach, and a more casual attitude in his brushstrokes than any of his earlier works that survived in private collections. The Cold War and the loss of so much of his art made him virtually unknown outside the Eastern Bloc, and he died in his home as a recluse in 1987.