Hans von Kulmbach
1522 · Holy Roman Empire · German Renaissance
The story
Around 1510 Albrecht Dürer, the most celebrated artist in Germany, largely gave up painting altarpieces to concentrate on his prints and his studies. Someone had to fill the gap in Nuremberg, and the man who did was his own pupil Hans Süss, known after his birthplace as Hans von Kulmbach.
He had trained first with Jacopo de' Barbari, a Venetian who carried Italian ideas north, then joined Dürer's workshop as a journeyman. When the master stepped back, Kulmbach inherited most of his altar commissions and ran a shop that could deliver a whole winged altarpiece, painted wings and carved shrine together. He designed stained glass too, drawings that city glaziers turned into church windows.
His work travelled. The Saint Catherine altarpiece he finished in 1515 was sent to Kraków in Poland and still stands there today, in the church of St Mary. Kulmbach himself died back in Nuremberg late in 1522.
