Heinrich Hofmann

1824–1911 · Germany

The Dresden painter whose Christ in Gethsemane and Christ and the Rich Young Ruler became two of the most reproduced images of the Savior in America.

See the 10 works Walk them in order

An artist's family in Darmstadt

Heinrich Hofmann was born in Darmstadt on March 19, 1824, into a family of artists: his father painted in watercolors, and his mother had taught art before she married. He took his first lessons from the engraver Ernst Rauch, then entered the Düsseldorf Academy in 1842 under Theodor Hildebrandt and Wilhelm von Schadow.

His mother’s death in 1854 moved him to paint his first major religious work, a Burial of Christ. In Rome he met Peter von Cornelius, who critiqued his Arrest of Christ for four years.

Sources: Wikipedia, Heinrich Hofmann (painter)

The Childhood of Jesus, by 1893

Drawing, reproduced as an illustration

From an 1893 edition of Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Dresden

In 1862 Hofmann and his wife, Elisabeth, moved to Dresden, and in 1870 he became a professor at its Academy of Art. There he painted the works that made him famous: Jesus in the Temple (1881), Christ and the Rich Young Ruler (1889), Christ in Gethsemane (1890), and a portrait of Christ in 1894.

Deseret News reports that the 1894 portrait was painted for his own bedroom, and that friends persuaded him to hang it in his studio, where he opened the doors to the public every Sunday.

Sources: Wikipedia, Heinrich Hofmann (painter) · Deseret News, 'Sacred Gifts' paintings bring history, stories to Provo

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria, by 1893

Drawing, reproduced as an illustration

From an 1893 edition of Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

From Dresden to New York

John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought three of Hofmann’s paintings, and The Riverside Church in New York now holds four: Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, Christ in Gethsemane, Christ in the Temple, and Christ’s Image.

The Gethsemane painting had an adventurous road there. Its last private owner, John Zeile of California, saved only this painting from his home in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. In 2013 Hofmann’s work hung at BYU beside Bloch’s and Schwartz’s in Sacred Gifts.

Sources: The Riverside Church archives: Which Heinrich Hofmann paintings does Riverside hold? · Deseret News, 'Sacred Gifts' paintings bring history, stories to Provo · Wikipedia, Heinrich Hofmann (painter)

Preaching to the Multitude, by 1893

Drawing, reproduced as an illustration

From an 1893 edition of Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

The drawings

Hofmann also published portfolios of drawings from the life of Jesus, including Remember Me (1885), Come Unto Me (1887) and Peace Unto You (1891). Several of the drawings in this wing come from an 1893 edition of Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ that reproduced them.

Sources: Wikipedia, Heinrich Hofmann (painter)