Arthur Illies

Karl Wilhelm Arthur Illies (9 February 1870, Hamburg - 27 May 1952, Lüneburg) was a German painter and graphic artist.

[1] He was born to Theodor Friedrich Wilhelm Illies, a merchant, and his wife, Albertine Mathilde née Schwarze.

He attended the Johanneum then, at sixteen, began an apprenticeship as a decorative painter at the firm of Wirth & Bay [de].

In 1889, after passing his journeyman examination, he went to Munich for studies at the Königlichen Kunstgewerbeschule, where his primary instructor was Ludwig Lesker (1840-1890).

[2] During World War I he was exempted from compulsory military service, but went to the front for three months in 1916, on behalf of Otto Lauffer, Director of the Museum for Hamburg History, to make sketches that were exhibited in 1918.

Although he apparently received no special support from the Third Reich, his paintings were displayed at the Große Deutsche Kunstausstellungen from 1941 to 1944, and Joseph Goebbels bought one of his works in 1943.