He was born to the painter, , and his wife, the poet Friederika née Von Diepold. His brothers, and also became painters, while his brother was an art critic and historian. In 1873, his family moved to
Düsseldorf, where he grew up and received his first painting lessons from his father. In 1886, he enrolled at the
Kunstakademie, where he studied with
Hugo Crola and
Johann Peter Theodor Janssen. In 1888, he transferred to the
Antwerp Academy, where his primary instructor was
Charles Verlat. Later, he attended the master classes taught by . He also attended a sculpture class from 1890 to 1891. He created his first independent paintings in 1892. He also took a study trip through France, where he discovered the works of the
Barbizon School, and several contemporary artists, such as
Van Gogh. After 1893, he maintained a studio in Antwerp. Further stud trips followed; to the
Italian Riviera and
Florence, where he spent a year trying his hand at sculpting. After a stay in Paris, he returned to Italy in 1896, where he married Ida Bianchi, the daughter of an engineer, and lived in Rome. They had a son and a daughter. Between 1903 and 1914, they travelled extensively and changed residence several times; from Antwerp to the
Taunus, to
Frankfurt am Main, where he ran a student workshop. In 1909, he established a studio in Berlin, but was in
Genoa by 1910. He and his family lived there until the outbreak of
World War I, when they went back to Berlin and he became involved with the German
Impressionist movement.. In 1919, he accepted an invitation from , the Mayor of
Emden, and discovered the landscapes of
Ostfriesland. He spent the year 1923 living near
Westerstede. While there, he divorced Ida and remarried, in 1925, to Margarethe Iderhoff, who was from that area. They settled in Norderney and had a son, Manfred, who became a sculptor. Their winters were spent in Berlin or Italy. The studio in Berlin, which housed most of his unsold paintings, was destroyed near the end of
World War II. Some of his works may be seen at the . == Sources ==