Adolf Richard Holzel (1853 – 1934) was a German painter. He began as a Realist, but later became an early promoter of various Modern styles, including Abstractionism.

Holzel was born in Olmütz. His father was the publisher, Eduard Holzel. In 1868, he completed a three-year apprenticeship as a typesetter at the map publishing firm of F.A.Perthes in Gotha.

Three years later, he and his family moved to Vienna where the following year he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts, moving to the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, in 1876, where he studied with Wilhelm von Diez.

Holzel married and divided his time between Munich and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. In Munich, he became acquainted with Fritz von Uhde, who introduced him to Impressionism.

Together with Von Uhde, Ludwig Dill and Arthur Langhammer, he helped create an art school, the Dachauer Malschule, in the nearby village of Dachau, which later became the keystone of the famous Dachau art colony.

During his time in Dachau, Adolf Holzel’s work began moving toward abstraction, reflecting his interest in such principles as the golden section and Goethe’s Theory of Colors. After studying the color theories of Wilhelm von Bezold, he developed his own color theory, based on a circle with “diatonic” and “chromatic” values (terms taken from music).

Adolf Holzel was involved in creating the Munich Secession and the Vienna Secession. His influential essay “Über Formen und Massenvertheilung” (On Shapes and Mass Distribution), was published in Ver Sacrum.

In 1905, Holzel was appointed to replace Leopold von Kalckreuth at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and received commissions on religious themes from the Deutscher Werkbund.

Despite abandoning Realism, Adolf Holzer still felt that his paintings contained a strong element of religion. Source: Artvee.