Carl Murdfield

Carl Ludwig Alfred Franz Murdfield, also Karl Murdfield (9 June 1868 – 8 May 1944) was a German portrait and Interieurmaler of the Düsseldorf school of painting, director of the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Organiser of art exhibitions, archivist and chairman of the art association Malkasten, author of local and Art history anecdotes as well as City Councillor in Düsseldorf.

Born in Rheine, Murdfield, youngest of five children from the marriage of the Catholic merchant Theodor Carl Joseph Murdfield (1823-1904) to Magdalena "Lena", née Becker (1836-1910), grew up in Rheine and attended the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1885 to 1892/1893.

His teachers there were Heinrich Lauenstein, Hugo Crola, Johann Peter Theodor Janssen, Adolf Schill, Julius Roeting and Eduard Gerhardt.

At the end of 1934 Murdfield retired as managing director of the Kunsthalle and was succeeded by the painter Fred Kocks.

Murdfield died in 1944 at the age of 75 after a short illness in Unterjoch (Allgäu), where he is buried in the mountain cemetery.

Gruppenführer der Malkasten-Redoute im Jahr 1912, von links nach rechts: Theodor Groll , Hermann Emil Pohle , Arthur Wansleben , Architekt Thilo Schneider, Friedrich Coubillier [ de ] , Henrik Nordenberg [ de ] , Carl Murdfield, Fritz von Wille
Portrait of the Archbishop Hubert Theophil Simar [ de ] , 1901
Exhibition of the Simar portrait adorned with crape in the Kunstpalast of the Industrie- und Gewerbeausstellung Düsseldorf 1902 , photo by Otto Renard
Hünenborg-Ehrenmal in Rheine